^APPLETONS 
LIBRARY 
OF   BRIEF 

BIOGRAPHIES^ 


GLADSTONE 


A  SHORT  LIFE  OF 
WILLIAM    EWART    GLADSTONE 


WITH   EXTRACTS    FROM   HIS  SPEECHES 
AND   WRITINGS 


BY 

CHARLES   H.  JONES 


NEW    YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 
1900 


COPYRIGHT  BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY. 

1880. 


PREFACE. 


IN  the  long  roll  of  English  statesmen  and 
party  leaders  there  is  none,  probably,  who  has 
won  such  cordial  sympathy  and  esteem  from  the 
American  public  as  Mr.  Gladstone.  Our  own 
political  struggles  are  so  absorbing  and  exhausting 
that  in  general  we  have  little  interest  to  spare  for 
those  electoral  contests  which  occasionally  disturb 
the  quiet  of  European  countries ;  but  the  recent 
"campaign"  in  Great  Britain  aroused  an  excite- 
ment among  our  more  intelligent  classes  which 
was  only  less  intense  than  that  which  was  seething 
in  England  itself,  and  here,  as  there,  the  interest 
centred  around  the  stalwart  figure  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. Here,  as  in  Europe,  his  splendid  triumph 
was  felt  to  be  something  more  than  the  victory 
of  one  party  or  "chieftain"  over  another  —  a 
triumph  far-reaching  in  its  consequences,  and 

2023878 


4  PREFACE. 

calculated  to  "strengthen  the  friends  of  puro 
popular  government  all  over  the  world." 

At  the  moment  when  this  great  career  has 
reached  its  culminating  phase,  it  has  seemed  to 
the  author  that  a  concise  popular  account  of  its 
various  stages  might  prove  interesting,  and  could 
hardly  fail  to  prove  instructive.  In  the  following 
pages  the  aim  has  been,  not  so  much  to  trace 
with  minute  precision  each  successive  step,  as  to 
furnish  material  for  a  fairly  accurate  general 
estimate  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  varied  labors  as 
statesman,  orator,  and  author ;  and  to  portray  as 
graphically  as  we  may  that  noble  and  opulent 
personality  which  lies  behind  them  all. 


CONTENTS. 


PAOB 

I.  INTRODUCTORY         .           .           .  . '  -       .      7 

II.  BIRTH,  CHILDHOOD,  AND  EDUCATION  .            .  v      1$ 

III.  IN  PARLIAMENT       .            .  .            .20 

IV.  IN  AND  OUT  OF  OFFICE            .  .           ,_         40 
V.  THE  PRISONS  OF  NAPLES    .            .  ,  .         .69 

VI.  CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER  .                       66 

VII.  THE  CRIMEAN  WAB            .           .".  \.           .    78 

VIII.  STUDIES  IN  HOMER     ...  .            .          90 

IX.  IN  A  LIBERAL  MINISTRY    .            .  .            .98 

X.  THE  REFORM  BILLS  OF  1866-'67  .            .113 

XI.  ELECTORAL   STRUGGLE    OVER    THE    IRISH  CHURCH 

QUESTION             .            .            .  .            .  181 

XII.  "THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM"  .            .         142 

XIII.  REACTION  AND  RETIREMENT            .  .            .  159 

XIV.  THE  EASTERN  QUESTION           .  .           .176 
XV.  ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN  OF  1879-'80  .            .  197 

XVI.  QUALITIES  AS  AN  ORATOR        .  .            .        210 

XVII.  QUALITIES  AS  A  PARTY  LEADER     .  .            .  225 

XVIII.  QUALITIES  AS  AN  AUTHOR        .  .            .        280 

XIX.  PERSONAL  TRAITS  .  242 


WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 


INTRODUCTORY. 

AT  a  time  when  the  public  everywhere  seems 
to  be  settling  down  upon  the  conviction  that  there 
is  something  in  "politics"  which  tends  naturally 
and  inevitably  to  sear  the  conscience  and  blunt  the 
fine  edge  of  personal  integrity,  it  is  peculiarly  in- 
structive and  encouraging  to  contemplate  the  ca- 
reer of  Mr.  Gladstone.  In  the  record  of  that  career 
we  may  study  the  example  of  a  man  who  from  his 
earliest  youth  has  breathed  the  atmosphere  of 
politics,  and  from  the  dawn  of  his  manhood  has 
lived  amid  the  thickest  tumults  of  party  struggle; 
yet  whose  purity  of  motive  and  elevation  of  char- 
acter have  never  been  so  much  as  questioned,  who 
could  never  be  tempted  to  sacrifice  conviction  to 
expediency,  whose  faith  in  principles  has  steadily 
preserved  him  from  the  easy  compliances  and  com- 
promises of  ordinary  political  usage,  and  whose 


8  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

conscientiousness  is  so  supreme  and  extreme 
that  it  has  sometimes  seemed  to  imperil  that 
clearness  of  view  and  promptitude  of  action  which 
are  among  the  most  indispensable  qualifications  of 
the  administrative  statesman.  What  was  said  of 
him  by  Mr.  Kinglake  at  the  period  of  the  Crimean 
War  might  be  applied  with  equal  truth  to  the 
whole  of  that  career  which  is  now  drawing  toward 
its  honored  close  :  "  If  he  was  famous  for  the  splen- 
dor of  his  eloquence,  for  his  unaffected  piety,  and 
for  his  blameless  life,  he  was  celebrated  far  and 
wide  for  a  more  than  common  liveliness  of  con- 
science. He  had  once  imagined  it  to  be  his  duty  to 
quit  a  government,  and  to  burst  through  long  ties  of 
friendship  and  gratitude,  by  reason  of  a  thin  shade 
of  difference  on  the  subject  of  white  or  brown 
sugar.  It  was  believed  that,  if  he  were  to  commit 
even  a  little  sin,  or  to  imagine  an  evil  thought,  he 
would  instantly  arraign  himself  before  the  dread 
tribunal  which  awaited  him  within  his  own  bosom; 
and  that,  his  intellect  being  subtle  and  microscopic, 
he  would  be  likely  to  give  his  soul  a  very  harsh 
trial,  and  treat  himself  as  a  great  criminal  for 
faults  too  minute  to  be  visible  to  the  naked  eyes 
of  laymen.  His  friends  live  in  dread  of  his  virtues, 
as  tending  to  make  him  whimsical  and  unstable, 
and  the  practical  politicians,  perceiving  that  he 
was  not  to  be  depended  upon  for  party  purposes, 
and  was  bent  upon  none  but  lofty  objects,  used  to 
look  upon  him  as  dangerous — used  to  call  him 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

behind  his  back  a  good  man — a  good  man  in  the 
worst  sense  of  the  term."  It  will  be  observed  that 
this  passage  is  colored  by  a  sentiment  which  is  not 
altogether  one  of  admiration — the  man  who  carries 
conscience  into  public  life  is  sure  to  seem  "im- 
practicable "  to  those  who  are  inclined  to  repudiate 
its  restraints  ;  but  to  the  general  public,  we  think, 
the  most  interesting  lesson  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  life 
is  the  proof  which  it  affords  that  sensiblity  of  con- 
science and  disinterestedness  of  character  are  not 
incompatible  with  a  brilliantly  successful  career 
in  practical  politics. 

Another  aspect  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  career, 
which  renders  it  peculiarly  interesting,  is  the  fact 
that  it  summarizes  and  reflects  with  unusual  fidel- 
ity the  leading  features  of  that  unexampled  period 
of  intellectual  ferment  and  changing  opinions  in 
the  midst  of  which  it  has  been  passed.  From 
being  "  the  rising  hope  of  the  stern  and  unbend- 
ing Tories"  of  a  generation  ago  (as  Macaulay 
called  him  at  the  outset  of  his  career),  Mr.  Glad- 
stone has  traversed  the  whole  vast  interval  which 
separated  these  from  the  most  advanced  liberal 
opinions  of  our  own  times,  and  has  become  one  of 
the  greatest  practical  reformers  whose  name  has 
appeared  in  the  annals  of  British  legislation.  To 
trace  the  gradual  steps  of  this  change  of  opinion 
and  sentiment  is  to  see  in  operation  the  most 
powerful  of  those  intellectual  and  social  forces 
that  are  transforming  the  modern  world. 


10  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

II. 
BIETH,    CHILDHOOD,    AND   EDUCATION. 

LANCASHIRE  has  had  the  honor  of  furnishing 
to  the  British  Parliament  the  three  greatest  ora- 
tors that  have  shed  luster  upon  its  recent  annals 
— Gladstone,  Bright,  and  the  late  Lord  Derby. 
The  greatest  of  these,  WILLIAM  EWART  GLAD- 
STONE, was  born  in  Liverpool  on  the  29th  of 
December,  1809.  By  his  mother's  side,  accord- 
ing to  Sir  Bernard  Burke,  he  has  in  his  veins  the 
blood  of  Henry  III  of  England,  and  Robert 
Bruce  of  Scotland ;  but  he  himself  has  never 
laid  claim  to  such  an  august  lineage,  and  has 
always  declared  himself  proud  to  be  in  all  respects 
a  representative  of  that  sturdy  middle  class  which 
has  ever  constituted  the  bone  and  sinew  of  his 
country's  greatness.  Another  fact  in  which  he 
takes  pride  is  that  on  both  sides  he  is  of  Scotch 
descent.  Referring  to  this  in  1865,  in  response 
to  an  address  from  the  Parliamentary  Reform 
Union,  in  the  Glasgow  Trade  Hall,  he  said  : 
"  If  Scotland  is  not  ashamed  of  her  sons,  her 
sons  are  not  ashamed  of  Scotland  ;  and  the  mem- 
ory of  the  parents  to  whom  I  owe  my  being  com- 
bines, with  various  other  considerations,  to  make 
me  glad  and  thankful  to  remember  that  the  blood 
which  runs  in  my  veins  is  exclusively  Scottish." 

The  family  name,  which  can  be  traced  back  in 


BIRTH,   CHILDHOOD,   AND  EDUCATION.         H 

legal  documents  to  the  year  1621,  appears  to  have 
undergone  several  changes  in  recent  times.  It  was 
Gledstanes  or  Gladstanes,  until  the  grandfather  of 
the  Liberal  statesman,  a  corn  merchant  of  Leith, 
changed  it  to  Gladstones,  and  it  was  not  until 
1835  that  his  father  was  legally  authorized  to 
drop  the  final  letter  ;  so  that  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
twenty-six  years  old  and  a  member  of  Parliament 
before  he  was  entitled  to  the  name  which  he  has 
since  rendered  famous  throughout  the  world. 

His  father,  John  Gladstone,  removed  in  early 
life  from  Leith  to  Liverpool,  where  he  became  one 
of  the  most  prosperous  and  enterprising  mer- 
chants of  the  place,  extending  his  commercial 
operations  to  all  parts  of  the  world.  His  firm 
"were  among  the  earliest  traders  with  Russia, 
and  they  snatched  at  the  East  India  trade  when 
the  monopoly  of  the  old  East  India  Company  was 
broken  down.  But  their  principal  business  was 
with  the  "West  Indies,  where  John  Gladstone  had 
large  sugar  plantations — a  circumstance  which, 
as  we  shall  see,  had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  mold- 
ing the  early  political  career  of  his  illustrious 
son."  It  is  not  the  most  pleasing  feature  of  Eng- 
lish social  life  that  those  who  have  risen  to  opu- 
lence and  position  by  trade  are  usually  ashamed 
of  the  fact,  and  not  indisposed  to  conceal  it.  Mr. 
Gladstone,  of  course,  is  incapable  of  any  such 
ignoble  sentiment,  and  in  1872,  while  Prime  Min- 
ister of  England,  took  occasion  to  say  (in  an  ad- 


12  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

dress  delivered  at  the  Liverpool  Collegiate  Insti- 
tute) :  "I  know  not  why  commerce  in  England 
should  not  have  its  old  families,  rejoicing  to  be 
connected  with  commerce  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration. It  has  been  so  in  other  countries  ;  I 
trust  it  will  be  so  in  this  country.  I  think  it  a 
subject  of  sorrow,  and  almost  of  scandal,  when 
those  families,  who  have  either  acquired  or  recov- 
ered station  and  wealth  through  commerce,  turn 
their  backs  upon  it,  and  seem  to  be  ashamed  of  it. 
It  certainly  is  not  so  with  my  brother  or  with  me. 
His  sons  are  treading  in  his  steps,  and  one  of  my 
sons,  I  rejoice  to  say,  is  treading  in  the  steps  of 
my  father  and  my  brother." 

Mr.  John  Gladstone  prosecuted  his  commercial 
enterprises  to  such  good  purpose  that  he  was  able 
to  make  comfortable  provision  for  each  of  his 
seven  sons  as  they  came  of  age ;  but  he  was  also 
remarkable  for  combining  great  business  ability 
and  zeal  with  a  keen  interest  in  public  affairs,  and 
with  something  of  the  graces  and  amenities  of  liter- 
ary culture.  In  the  local  affairs  of  Liverpool  he 
took  an  active  and  prominent  part,  and  to  his 
efforts  much  of  its  ever-increasing  prosperity 
was  due.  In  politics,  also,  he  took  an  active  inter- 
est. "  When,  in  1812,"  says  Mr.  Lucy,  "  Canning 
fought  a  famous  election  in  Liverpool,  John  Glad- 
stone threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  advo- 
cacy of  the  cause  of  the  great  minister.  He  ad- 
dressed public  meetings  on  his  behalf,  and  it  was 


BIRTH,   CHILDHOOD,  AND  EDUCATION.         13 

from  the  balcony  of  his  house  in  Rodney  Street 
that  Mr.  Canning  spoke  to  the  enthusiastic  crowd 
who,  as  the  result  of  the  election,  hailed  him  Mem- 
ber for  Liverpool.  There  was  in  the  house  at  the 
time  a  little  boy  destined  to  fill  a  larger  space  in 
history  even  than  Canning.  William  Ewart  Glad- 
stone was  in  his  third  year  at  this  time,  and  doubt- 
less from  some  upper  window  looked  out  with 
wondering  eyes  on  the  turbulent  crowd,  and  heard 
the  Minister  talking  of  Catholic  Emancipation  and 
other  strange  matters.  In  fact,  we  have  his  per- 
sonal testimony  on  this  interesting  point.  On  the 
29th  December,  1879,  on  the  occasion  of  his  reach- 
ing his  seventieth  year,  Mr.  Gladstone  received  at 
Hawarden  a  deputation  of  Liverpool  gentlemen 
who  brought  hearty  congratulations  and  a  costly 
present.  In  the  course  of  his  acknowledgment 
the  right  honorable  gentleman  said  :  '  You  have 
referred  to  my  connection  with  Liverpool,  and  it 
has  happened  to  me  singularly  enough  to  have  the 
incidents  of  my  personality,  the  association  of  my 
personality,  if  I  may  so  speak,  curiously  divided 
between  the  Scotch  extraction,  which  is  purely 
and  absolutely  Scotch  as  to  every  drop  of  blood  in 
my  veins,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  nativity  in 
Liverpool,  which  is  the  scene  of  my  earliest  recol- 
lections. And  very  early  those  recollections  are, 
for  I  remember,  gentlemen,  what  none  of  you 
could  possibly  recollect :  I  remember  the  first 
election  of  Mr.  Canning  in  Liverpool.' " 


14  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

At  a  later  period,  owing  probably  to  the  in- 
fluence of  Mr.  Canning,  Mr.  John  Gladstone  pre- 
sented himself  as  a  candidate  for  Woodstock,  a 
pocket  borough  of  the  Marlborough  family  ;  and 
subsequently  represented  Lancaster  and  other  con- 
stituencies, being,  altogether,  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  for  nine  years.  He  was  in  the 
House  at  the  same  time  with  his  son,  and  must  have 
listened  to  many  of  his  earlier  efforts  in  Parlia- 
mentary oratory.  "  In  1845,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  part- 
ly in  recognition  of  his  own  merit,  but,  doubtless, 
in  compliment  to  the  brilliant  young  colleague 
who  was  the  bright  particular  star  of  his  ministry, 
made  the  elder  Gladstone  a  baronet.  Six  years 
later,  in  the  year  of  the  Great  Exhibition,  Sir  John 
died,  full  of  years  and  honors  and  riches.  His 
title  went  to  Thomas,  his  eldest  son,  now  the  only 
surviving  brother  of  the  subject  of  this  sketch." 

During  all  this  period  the  house  of  Sir  John 
in  Liverpool  was  a  sort  of  rendezvous  for  the 
leaders  of  his  party,  and  the  home-life  of  the  fam- 
ily was  deeply  tinctured  with  political  thought 
and  feeling.  Sir  John  early  discovered  the  keen 
intellectual  powers  of  his  son,  and  it  is  said  that 
before  the  boy  had  reached  his  teens  father  and 
son  were  in  the  habit  of  conversing  together  on 
the  various  topics  of  public  interest.  The  boy- 
hood of  William  Ewart,  like  that  of  William 
Pitt,  was  thus  passed  in  the  midst  of  associa- 
tions which  were  best  calculated  to  foster  and  en- 


BIRTH,  CHILDHOOD,  AND  EDUCATION.         15 

courage  the  natural  development  of  his  special 
genius. 

About  the  first  steps  in  the  future  statesman's 
education  very  little  is  known.  He  probably  re- 
ceived his  earliest  instruction  at  home  and  from 
his  parents,  and  Archdeacon  Jones  was  his  first 
school-master.  The  most  interesting  reminis- 
cence of  his  school-days  is  preserved  in  an  anec- 
dote told  recently  by  Dean  Stanley  :  "  There  is 
a  small  school  near  Liverpool,"  said  the  Dean, 
"at  which  Mr.  Gladstone  was  brought  up  before 
he  went  to  Eton.  A  few  years  afterward  another 
little  boy,  who  went  to  this  school,  and  whose 
name  I  will  not  mention,  called  upon  the  old 
clergyman  who  was  the  head  master.  The  boy 
was  now  a  young  man,  and  he  said  to  the  pld 
clergyman,  *  There  is  one  thing  in  which  I  have 
never  in  the  least  degree  improved  since  I  was  at 
school — the  casting  up  of  figures.'  'Well,'  re- 
plied the  master,  '  it  is  very  extraordinary  that  it 
should  be  so,  because  certainly  no  one  could  be 
a  more  incapable  arithmetician  at  school  than 
you  were  ;  but  I  will  tell  you  a  curious  thing. 
When  Mr.  Gladstone  was  at  the  school,  he  was 
just  as  incapable  at  addition  and  subtraction  as 
you  were  :  now  you  see  what  he  has  become.  He 
is  one  of  the  greatest  of  our  financiers. ' " 

In  September,  1821,  Mr.  Gladstone,  then  in 
his  twelfth  year,  was  entered  at  Eton,  where  he 
remained  for  the  ensuing  six  years.  It  is  not  re- 


16  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

corded  that  lie  especially  distinguished  himself  in 
the  ordinary  work  of  the  school,  except  that  on 
several  occasions  he  was  "  sent  up  for  good  "  on 
account  of  verses  ;  but  he  was  one  of  the  found- 
ers of,  and  by  far  the  most  copious  contributor  to, 
the  "Eton  Miscellany."  Among  other  contribu- 
tors to  the  "  Miscellany "  were  G.  A.  (afterward 
Bishop)  Selwyn,  Arthur  Henry  Hallam,  and  F.  H. 
(now  Sir  Francis  Hastings)  Doyle  ;  but  young 
Gladstone  took  the  lion's  share  of  the  work  upon 
himself,  writing  with  equal  facility  in  prose  and 
verse,  translating  from  the  Greek  and  Latin,  in- 
dulging in  humorous  extravagances,  and  inditing, 
among  other  things,  a  tremendous  "heroic  "  poem 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  lines  on  Eichard  Cceur  de 
Lion. 

Leaving  Eton  in  1827,  he  became  the  private 
pupil  of  Dr.  Turner,  afterward  Bishop  of  Cal- 
cutta, with  whom  he  continued  for  two  years  ; 
and  in  1829,  being  then  in  his  twenty-first  year, 
he  was  sent  to  Christ  Church  College,  Oxford, 
where,  in  1831,  he  graduated  with  the  rare 
honors  of  a  "  double  first-class  " — first-class  both 
in  classics  and  in  mathematics.  Perhaps  the  thing 
by  which  he  profited  most  during  his  stay  at  Ox- 
ford was  the  Debating  Society,  or  Oxford  Union, 
in  connection  with  which  we  get  the  most  in- 
teresting and  characteristic  glimpses  of  him  at 
this  period.  Says  Mr.  Smith,  his  most  painstak- 
ing biographer :  "  Mr.  Gladstone  made  his  first 


BIRTH,   CHILDHOOD,  AND  EDUCATION.         17 

speech  on  the  llth  of  February,  1830,  and  was 
the  same  night  elected  a  member  of  the  com- 
mittee. The  following  year  he  succeeded  Mr. 
Milnes  Gaskell  in  the  office  of  secretary.  'His 
minutes  are  neat ;  proper  names  are  underlined 
and  half  printed.  As  secretary,  he  opposed  a 
motion  for  the  removal  of  Jewish  disabilities. 
He  also  moved  that  the  Wellington  administra- 
tion was  undeserving  of  the  country's  confidence  : 
Gaskell,  Lyall,  and  Lord  Lincoln  supported, 
Sidney  Herbert  and  the  Marquis  (now  Duke)  of 
Abercorn  opposed  him.  The  motion  was  carried 
by  57  to  56,  and  the  natural  exultation  of  the 
mover  betrayed  itself  in  such  irregular  entries  as 
" tremendous  cheers,"  "repeated  cheering."  The 
following  week  he  was  elected  president.'  Mr. 
Gladstone  spoke  in  three  other  debates  upon  im- 
portant public  questions.  In  common  with  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  he  defended  the  re- 
sults of  Catholic  relief,  and,  on  the  occasion  of  a 
vote  of  want  of  confidence  in  Earl  Grey's  govern- 
ment being  proposed  [on  account  of  the  first  move- 
ment toward  Parliamentary  Reform],  he  moved  the 
following  rider  :  '  That  the  ministry  has  unwisely 
introduced,  and  most  unscrupulously  forwarded, 
a  measure  which  threatens  not  only  to  change  our 
form  of  government,  but  ultimately  to  break  up 
the  very  foundation  of  social  order,  as  well  as  ma- 
terially to  foward  the  views  of  those  who  are  pur- 
suing this  project  throughout  the  civilized  world. ' 


18  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

These  terrible  prognostications  have  been  de- 
feated, but  the  terror  engendered  in  the  Univer- 
sity by  national  progress  led  94  out  of  130  under- 
graduates to  endorse  the  prophecies  of  the  new 
Cassandra.  Mr.  Gladstone  closed  his  career  at 
the  Oxford  Union  by  proposing  an  amendment 
to  a  motion  for  the  immediate  emancipation  of 
our  slaves  in  the  West  Indies.  This  was  on  June 
2,  1831,  and  the  young  orator's  amendment  ran 
as  follows  :  *  That  legislative  enactments  ought 
to  be  made,  and,  if  necessary,  to  be  enforced — 1st, 
for  better  guarding  the  personal  and  civil  rights 
of  the  negroes  in  our  West  Indian  colonies  ;  3d, 
for  establishing  compulsory  manumission ;  3d, 
for  securing  universally  the  receiving  of  a  Chris- 
tian education,  under  the  clergy  and  teachers,  in- 
dependent of  the  planters ;  a  measure  of  which 
total  but  gradual  emancipation  will  be  the  natural 
consequence,  as  it  was  of  a  similar  procedure  in 
the  first  ages  of  Christianity.'" 

Eead  in  the  light  of  his  later  opinions,  and  of 
the  acts  which  have  secured  his  fame  as  a  states- 
man, these  records  are  very  curious.  Home  in- 
fluences, together  with  that  peculiar  fascination 
which  the  name  and  personality  of  Canning  seem 
always  to  have  possessed  for  him,  had  early  im- 
bued the  youthful  Gladstone  with  Tory  senti- 
ments of  the  most  rigid  and  bigoted  type ;  and 
these  sentiments  were  confirmed  and  strength- 
ened by  his  University  career,  the  traditions  of 


BIRTH,   CHILDHOOD,    AND  EDUCATION.         19 

Oxford  being  all  in  that  direction,  while  the  col- 
legians with  whom  he  was  more  intimately  asso- 
ciated were  for  the  most  part  both  Tories  and 
High  Churchmen.  Summing  up  at  a  much  later 
period  (in  a  speech  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the 
Palmerston  Club,  Oxford,  in  December,  1878)  the 
general  effect  of  his  University  training,  Mr. 
Gladstone  said : 

UI  trace  in  the  education  of  Oxford  of  my  own  time 
one  great  defect.  Perhaps  it  was  my  own  fault ;  but  I 
must  admit  that  I  did  not  learn,  when  at  Oxford,  that 
which  I  have  learned  since,  viz.,  to  set  a  due  value  on 
the  imperishable  and  the  inestimable  principles  of  human 
liberty.  The  temper  which,  I  think,  too  much  prevailed 
in  academic  circles  was,  that  liberty  was  regarded  with 
jealousy,  and  fear  could  not  be  wholly  dispensed  with. 
....  I  think  that  the  principle  of  the  Conservative  party  is 
jealousy  of  liberty  and  of  the  people,  only  qualified  by 
fear ;  but  I  think  the  policy  of  the  Liberal  party  is  trust 
in  the  people,  only  qualified  by  prudence.  I  can  only 
assure  you,  gentlemen,  that,  now  I  am  in  front  of  ex- 
tended popular  privileges,  I  have  no  fear  of  those  en- 
largements of  the  constitution  that  seem  to  be  ap- 
proaching. On  the  contrary,  I  hail  them  with  desire. 
I  am  not  in  the  least  degree  conscious  that  I  have  less 
reverence  for  antiquity,  for  the  beautiful,  and  good,  and 
glorious  charges  that  our  ancestors  have  handed  down  to 
us  as  a  patrimony  to  our  race,  than  I  had  in  other  days 
when  I  held  other  political  opinions.  I  have  learned  to 
set  the  true  value  upon  human  liberty,  and  in  whatever 
I  have  changed,  there,  and  there  only,  has  been  the  ex- 
planation of  the  change." 


20  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

On  the  completion  of  his  University  course  Mr. 
Gladstone  spent  a  short  time  at  home,  and  then 
proceeded  to  the  Continent  for  travel  and  recrea- 
tion, spending  several  months  in  Italy,  whence 
he  was  hastily  recalled  by  an  offer  of  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons. 


III. 

IX   PARLIAMENT. 

"MR.  GLADSTONE,"  says  Mr.  Lucy,  "was  in 
Italy  when  the  summons  came  in  obedience  to 
which  he  placed  his  foot  on  the  first  rung  in  the 
ladder  of  fame.  It  was  in  the  year  1832.  The 
Eeform  Bill  had  just  been  passed,  and  the  United 
Kingdom  was  in  the  throes  of  expectation  as  to 
what  might  follow  on  the  summoning  of  the  first 
Reform  Parliament.  It  was  the  Duke  of  New- 
castle, registered  owner  of  the  borough  of  Newark, 
who  was  immediately  instrumental  in  bringing 
Mr.  Gladstone  into  the  House  of  Commons.  In 
a  conversation  which  took  place  upon  the  hust- 
ings on  the  day  of  nomination,  there  is  something 
eminently  characteristic  of  Mr.  Gladstone  as  we 
know  him  in  these  days.  A  matter-of-fact  elec- 
tor, who  probably  did  not  rent  his  house  or  shop 
from  the  Duke,  asked  the  young  candidate, 


IN  PARLIAMENT.  21 

'  Whether  he  was  not  the  Duke  of  Newcastle's 
nominee  ? '  This  was  an  exceedingly  embarrass- 
ing question.  If  the  candidate  said  'No,'  he 
would  be  convicted,  within  every  man's  knowl- 
edge, of  a  falsehood.  If  he  said  '  Yes,'  what  a 
farce  was  this  nomination  and  bustle  at  the  poll ! 
But  Mr.  Gladstone,  though  an  exceedingly  young 
bird  at  this  date,  was  not  to  be  caught  by  chaff. 
He  asked  the  honorable  elector  to  do  him  the  fa- 
vor of  defining  the  term  nominee.  The  unwary 
elector  fell  into  the  trap,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  was, 
of  course,  able  to  declare  that  in  such  a  sense  he 
was  not  the  Duke's  nominee.*  As  a  matter  of 
fact  he  certainly  was,  and  the  .preponderance  of 
the  Duke's  influence  was  indicated  by  his  being 
returned  at  the  head  of  the  poll." 

*  The  question  and  answer  were  as  follows,  as  reported  in 
one  of  the  local  journals  : 

"Mr.  Gillson  inquired  of  Mr.  Gladstone  how  he  came  to 
Newark,  after  he  had  neglected  to  attend  a  meeting  of  the 
electors  to  which  he  was  invited,  and  whether  he  was  not  the 
Duke  of  Newcastle's  nominee. 

"Mr.  Gladstone  wished  to  have  Mr.  Gillson's  definition  of  the 
term  'nominee,'  and  then  he  would  answer. 

"  Mr.  Gillson  said  he  meant  a  person  sent  by  the  Duke  of 
Newcastle  to  be  pushed  down  the  electors'  throats,  whether 
they  would  or  not. 

"  Mr.  Gladstone  replied,  then,  according  to  that  definition,  he 
was  not  a  nominee.  He  came  to  Newark  by  the  invitation  of 
the  Red  Club,  than  whom  none  were  more  respectable  and  in- 
telligent. The  Club  sent  to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  to  know 
if  he  could  recommend  a  candidate  to  them,  and  in  consequence 


22  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

A  further  proof  that  he  was  the  Duke's  nom- 
inee is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  when,  several 
years  later,  Mr.  Gladstone  had  resolved  to  sup- 
port Sir  Eobert  Peel's  free-trade  policy,  he  felt 
obliged  to  resign  his  seat  for  Newark  solely  be- 
cause the  Duke  of  Newcastle  was  opposed  to  that 
policy  ;  but  this  only  fortifies  the  one  strong  ar- 
gument in  favor  of  pocket  or  nomination  boroughs, 
namely,  that  they  gave  the  opportunity  for  in- 
troducing into  the  House  of  Commons  young 
men  of  promise,  who  would  never  have  secured 
such  an  advantage  on  their  own  merits  alone. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  Macaulay  was  intro- 
duced in  the  same  way  by  Lord  Lansdowne  ;  and 
certainly,  if  no  worse  abuses  were  connected  with 
pocket  boroughs  than  furnishing  opportunities 
to  such  young  men  as  Macaulay  and  Gladstone, 
there  would  have  been  very  little  to  say  against 
them. 

In  spite  of  the  support  of  the  Duke,  however, 
the  youthful  candidate  encountered  vigorous  op- 
position, and  was  subjected  by  one  of  the  local 
journals  to  the  following  sharp  criticism,  which 
is  particularly  interesting,  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
the  object  of  it  was  destined  to  equip  the  voters 
with  that  very  ballot  which  is  here  appealed  to 
against  him :  "  Mr.  Gladstone  is  the  son  of 
Gladstone,  of  Liverpool,  a  person  who  (we  are 

he  was  appealed  to,  and  accepted  the  invitation  of  the  Red 
Club." 


IN  PAELIAMENT.  23 

speaking  of  the  father)  had  amassed  a  large  for- 
tune by  West  India  dealings.  In  other  "words, 
a  great  part  of  his  gold  has  sprung  from  the 
blood  of  black  slaves.  Respecting  the  youth 
himself — a  person  fresh  from  college,  and  whose 
mind  is  as  much  like  a  sheet  of  white  foolscap  as 
possible — he  was  utterly  unknown.  He  came  rec- 
ommended by  no  claim  in  the  world  except  the 
will  of  the  Duke.  The  Duke  nodded  unto  New- 
ark, and  Newark  sent  back  the  man,  or  rather 
the  boy,  of  his  choice.  What !  Is  this  to  be,  now 
that  the  Reform  Bill  has  done  its  work  ?  Are 
sixteen  hundred  men  still  to  bow  down  to  a 
wooden-headed  lord,  as  the  people  of  Egypt  used 
to  do  to  their  beasts,  to  their  reptiles,  and  their 
ropes  of  onions  ?  There  must  be  something 
wrong — something  imperfect.  What  is  it  ?  What 
is  wanting?  Why,  the  ballot  !  If  there  be  a 
doubt  of  this  (and  we  believe  there  is  a  doubt 
even  among  intelligent  men),  the  tale  of  Newark 
must  set  the  question  at  rest.  Serjeant  Wilde 
was  met  on  his  entry  into  the  town  by  almost  the 
whole  population.  He  was  greeted  everywhere, 
cheered  everywhere.  He  was  received  with  de- 
light by  his  friends,  and  with  good  and  earnest 
wishes  for  his  success  by  his  nominal  foes.  The 
voters  for  Gladstone  went  up  to  that  candidate's 
booth  (the  slave-driver,  as  they  called  him)  with 
Wilde's  colors.  People  who  had  before  voted  for 
Wilde,  on  being  asked  to  give  up  their  suffrage, 


24  WILLIAM   BWART   GLADSTONE. 

said  :  '  We  can  not,  we  dare  not.  We  have  lost 
half  our  business,  and  shall  lose  the  rest  if  we  go 
against  the  Duke.  We  would  do  anything  in  our 
power  for  Serjeant  Wilde,  and  for  the  cause,  but 
we  can  not  starve  ! '  Now,  what  say  ye,  our  merry 
men,  touching  the  ballot  ?  " 

On  the  other  hand,  his  personal  appearance 
was  very  much  in  his  favor,  and  the  speeches  he 
delivered  made  such  an  impression  that  another 
journalist  "  ventures  to  predict,  without  the  slight- 
est exaggeration,  that  he  will  one  day  be  classed 
amongst  the  most  able  statesmen  in  the  British 
senate."  But  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the 
contest  was  the  "Election  Address,"  which  is 
Mr.  Gladstone's  first  authentic  public  utterance, 
and  which  is  worth  preserving  as  the  starting- 
point  of  that  great  career  which  has  since  swept 
so  widely  away  from  the  principles  and  senti- 
ments therein  laid  down.  The  document  is  dated 
"Clinton  Arms,  Newark,  October  9,  1832,"  is 
inscribed  "To  the  worthy  and  independent 
electors  of  the  Borough  of  Newark,"  and  is  as 
follows : 

"  Having  now  completed  my  canvass,  I  think  it  my 
duty  as  well  to  remind  you  of  the  principles  on  which  I 
have  solicited  your  votes,  as  freely  to  assure  my  friends 
that  its  result  has  placed  my  success  beyond  a  doubt. 

"  I  have  not  requested  your  favor  on  the  ground  of 
adherence  to  the  opinions  of  any  man  or  party,  further 
than  such  adherence  can  be  fairly  understood  from  the 


IN  PARLIAMENT.  25 

conviction  I  have  not  hesitated  to  avow,  that  we  must 
watch  and  resist  that  uninquiring  and  indiscriminating 
desire  for  change  among  us,  which  threatens  to  produce, 
along  with  partial  good,  a  melancholy  preponderance  of 
mischief ;  which,  I  am  persuaded,  would  aggravate  be- 
yond computation  the  deep-seated  evils  of  our  social  state, 
and  the  heavy  burdens  of  our  industrial  classes ;  which, 
by  disturbing  our  peace,  destroys  confidence,  and  strikes 
at  the  root  of  prosperity.  Thus  it  has  done  already ; 
and  thus,  we  must  therefore  believe,  it  will  do. 

"  For  the  mitigation  of  those  evils,  we  must,  I  think, 
look  not  only  to  particular  measures,  but  to  the  resto- 
ration of  sounder  general  principles.  I  mean  especially 
that  principle  on  which  alone  the  incorporation  of 
religion  with  the  State  in  our  constitution  can  be  de- 
fended ;  that  the  duties  of  governors  are  strictly  and  pe- 
culiarly religious;  and  that  legislatures,  like  individuals, 
are  bound  to  carry  throughout  their  acts  the  spirit  of  the 
high  truths  they  have  acknowledged.  Principles  are 
now  arrayed  against  our  institutions ;  and  not  by  truck- 
ling nor  by  temporizing — not  by  oppression  nor  corrup- 
tion— but  by  principles,  they  must  be  met. 

"  Among  their  first  results  should  be  a  sedulous  and 
special  attention  to  the  interest  of  the  poor,  founded 
upon  the  rule  that  those  who  are  the  least  able  to  take 
care  of  themselves  should  be  most  regarded  by  others. 
Particularly  it  is  a  duty  to  endeavor,  by  every  means, 
that  labor  may  receive  adequate  remuneration;  which, 
unhappily,  among  several  classes  of  our  fellow  country- 
men is  not  now  the  case.  Whatever  measures  there- 
fore— whether  by  correction  of  the  poor  laws,  allotment 
of  cottage  grounds,  or  otherwise — tend  to  promote  this 
object,  I  deem  entitled  to  the  warmest  support,  with  all 


26  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

such  as  are  calculated  to  secure  sound  moral  conduct 
in  any  class  of  society. 

"I  proceed  to  the  momentous  question  of  slavery, 
which  I  have  found  entertained  among  you  in  that  can- 
did and  temperate  spirit  which  alone  befits  its  nature, 
or  promises  to  remove  its  difficulties.  If  I  have  not  rec- 
ognized the  right  of  an  irresponsible  society  to  inter- 
pose between  me  and  the  electors,  it  has  not  been  from 
any  disrespect  to  its  members,  nor  from  unwillingness  to 
answer  theirs  or  any  other  questions  on  which  the  elec- 
tors may  desire  to  know  my  views.  To  the  esteemed 
secretary  of  the  society  I  submitted  my  reasons  for  si- 
lence ;  and  I  made  a  point  of  stating  these  views  to  him, 
in  his  character  of  a  voter. 

"As  regards  the  abstract  lawfulness  of  slavery,  I 
acknowledge  it  simply  as  importing  the  right  of  one 
man  to  the  labor  of  another ;  and  I  rest  it  upon  the  fact 
that  Scripture,  the  paramount  authority  upon  such  a 
point,  gives  directions  to  persons  standing  in  the  rela- 
tion of  master  to  slave,  for  their  conduct  in  that  direc- 
tion ;  whereas,  were  the  matter  absolutely  and  necessa- 
rily sinful,  it  would  not  regulate  the  manner.  Assuming 
sin  as  the  cause  of  degradation,  it  strives,  and  strives 
most  effectually,  to  cure  the  latter  by  extirpating  the 
former.  We  are  agreed  that  both  the  physical  and 
the  moral  bondage  of  the  slave  are  to  be  abolished. 
The  question  is  as  to  the  order,  and  the  order  only ; 
now  Scripture  attacks  the  moral  evil  before  the  tem- 
poral one,  and  the  temporal  through  the  moral  one, 
and  I  am  content  with  the  order  which  Scripture  has 
established. 

"  To  this  end,  I  desire  to  see  immediately  set  on 
foot,  by  impartial  and  sovereign  authority,  a  universal 


IN  PARLIAMENT.  27 

and  efficient  system  of  Christian  instruction,  not  in- 
tended to  resist  designs  of  individual  piety  and  wis- 
dom for  the  religions  improvement  of  the  negroes, 
but  to  do  thoroughly  what  they  can  only  do  par- 
tially. 

"As  regards  immediate  emancipation,  whether  with 
or  without  compensation,  there  are  several  minor  reasons 
against  it ;  but  that  which  weighs  with  me  is  that  it 
would,  I  much  fear,  exchange  the  evils  now  affecting  the 
negro  for  others  which  are  weightier — for  a  relapse  into 
deeper  debasement,  if  not  for  bloodshed  and  internal 
war.  Let  fitness  be  made- a  condition  for  emancipation ; 
and  let  us  strive  to  bring  him  to  that  fitness  by  the  short- 
est possible  course.  Let  him  enjoy  the  means  of  earn- 
ing his  freedom  through  honest  and  industrious  habits ; 
thus  the  same  instruments  which  attain  his  liberty  shall 
likewise  render  him  competent  to  use  it;  and  thus,  I 
earnestly  trust,  without  risk  of  blood,  without  violation 
of  property,  with  unimpaired  benefit  to  the  negro,  and 
with  the  utmost  speed  which  prudence  will  admit,  we  shall 
•arrive  at  that  exceedingly  desirable  consummation,  the 
utter  extinction  of  slavery. 

"And  now,  gentlemen,  as  regards  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  you  have  rallied  round  your  ancient  flag, 
and  welcomed  the  humble  representative  of  those  prin- 
ciples whose  emblem  it  is,  I  trust  that  neither  the  lapse 
of  time  nor  the  seductions  of  prosperity  can  ever  efface 
it  from  my  memory.  To  my  opponents,  my  acknowl- 
edgments are  due  for  the  good-humor  and  kindness  with 
which  they  have  received  me ;  and,  while  I  would  thank 
my  friends  for  their  zealous  and  unwearied  exertions  in 
my  favor,  I  briefly  but  emphatically  assure  them  that,  if 
promises  be  an  adequate  foundation  of  confidence,  of 


28  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

experience  a  reasonable  ground  of  calculation,  our  victory 
is  sure. 

"  I  have  the  honor  to  be,  gentlemen, 

"Your  obliged  and  obedient  servant, 

"  W.  E.  GLADSTONE." 

As  has  already  been  said,  the  result  of  the  con- 
test was  that  Mr.  Gladstone  came  out  at  the  head 
of  the  poll ;  and  thus,  at  the  age  of  twenty-three, 
he  found  himself  in  that  position  to  which  he  had 
begun  to  aspire  when,  as  a  youth  of  seventeen,  he 
was  writing  for  the  "Eton  Miscellany,"  and  avow- 
ing Canning  to  be  his  ideal  of  a  statesman. 

The  first  Eeform  Parliament  met  in  January, 
1833,  and  the  young  member  from  Newark  quietly 
entered  upon  the  scene  where  for  nearly  fifty  years 
he  has  played  so  conspicuous  a  part.  In  his 
maiden  speech,  as  in  every  other  particular  of  his 
career,  he  differed  as  widely  as  possible  from  the 
great  rival  whose  persistent  efforts  to  obtain  en- 
trance to  the  House  of  Commons  had  hitherto 
failed,  and  whose  melodramatic  and  pretentious 
"  first  speech  "  at  a  later  period  invited  the  mor- 
tifying failure  which  it  achieved.  Mr.  Gladstone's 
maiden  speech  was  not  delivered  in  the  course  of 
a  great  debate,  but  upon  a  sort  of  side  issue,  and, 
in  fact,  in  defense  of  his  father,  to  whom  personal 
reference  had  been  made  in  the  course  of  a  dis- 
cussion on  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the  West 
Indies.  It  was  modest  and  argumentative,  ad- 
hering closely  to  facts,  and  making  small  attempt 


IN  PARLIAMENT.  29 

at  oratorical  display  ;  and  it  produced  so  favorable 
an  impression  upon  the  House  that  he  was  listened 
to  respectfully  whenever  he  rose  thereafter.  Mr. 
Justin  McCarthy  says  that  "he  was  from  the  very 
first  recognized  as  a  brilliant  debater,  and  as  one 
who  promised  to  be  an  orator "  ;  but  this  hardly 
applies  to  his  very  earliest  efforts,  when  he  was 
testing,  as  it  were,  the  quality  of  his  instruments, 
and  catching  the  tone  of  the  House. 

Once  again  during  this  first  session  Mr.  Glad- 
stone spoke  on  the  question  of  the  abolition  of 
slavery.  His  father  owned  many  slaves  in  Dem- 
erara,  and  to  denounce  the  institution  of  slavery 
was,  in  a  sense,  to  impugn  his  father's  humanity  ; 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  seems  to  have  been  somewhat 
hampered  by  this  complication  of  affairs.  Still, 
his  attitude  was  not  one  of  unqualified  hostility 
to  emancipation.  He  thought  that  emancipation 
should  be  gradual,  and  should  be  carefully  pre- 
pared for  ;  and  he  demanded,  above  all,  that  the 
interests  of  the  planters  should  be  duly  regarded. 
The  House  agreed  with  him  in  part,  for  the  abo- 
lition of  colonial  slavery  was  decreed,  and  the  sum 
of  £20,000,000  was  voted  to  the  slave-owners  as 
compensation  for  their  losses. 

Nothing  could  well  be  more  dreary  than  a  mi- 
nute record  of  debates  and  divisions — of  those 
factitious  struggles  where,  as  Mr.  Carlyle  says, 
"  Hungry  Greek  meets  hungry  Greek  on  the  floor 
of  St.  Stephen's,  and  wrestles  with  him  and  throt- 


30  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

ties  him  until  he  has  to  cry,  '  Hold  !  the  office  is 
thine ' "  ;  and  it  is  not  our  intention  to  do  more 
than  mention  the  salient  questions  in  which  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  taken  part,  and  which  form  land- 
marks in  his  political  career.  It  is  always  diffi- 
cult to  detach  the  personal  biography  of  a  states- 
man from  the  history  of  his  times,  and  perhaps 
more  difficult  still  to  combine  them  into  a  satisfac- 
tory whole.  This  is  the  reason,  possibly,  why  lives 
of  public  men  are  nearly  always  either  dull  and 
prosy  or  sketchy  and  inadequate  ;  but,  as  our  space 
is  strictly  limited,  we  shall  endeavor  to  escape 
dullness  by  avoiding  details,  and  must  content 
ourselves  with  stating  results. 

In  his  first  session,  besides  resisting  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery,  Mr.  Gladstone  delivered  a  speech 
in  defense  of  "that  estimable  body  of  politicians, 
the  Freemen  of  Liverpool,  who  were  threatened 
with  extinction  consequent  upon  a  too  open  exer- 
cise of  their  alleged  right  to  do  what  they  liked 
with  their  own — that  is  to  say,  to  get  as  much  as 
possible  for  their  votes."  The  House  did  not  ac- 
cept his  defense  as  adequate,  and  he  was  also 
unsuccessful  in  resisting  an  attempt  to  deal  with 
the  temporalities  of  the  Church  of  Ireland,  and  in 
opposing  Mr.  Hume  in  his  effort  to  open  the  uni- 
versities to  Nonconformists. 

Though,  generally  speaking,  on  the  losing  side 
and  voting  in  the  minority,  before  the  close  of  the 
session  Mr.  Gladstone  had  convinced  the  House, 


IN   PARLIAMENT.  31 

and  especially  the  Tory  portion  of  it,  that  he  was 
emphatically  one  of  its  coming  men,  and  had 
manifested  that  remarkable  skill  in  dealing  with 
facts  and  figures  that  has  ever  since  been  one  of 
his  most  striking  characteristics.  Kecognition  of 
this  came  sooner  than  could  reasonably  have  been 
expected.  "  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  quietly  noted 
the  young  member  for  Newark,  and  when,  in 
the  last  days  of  1834,  the  Right  Hon.  Baronet 
undertook  to  form  a  ministry  in  succession  to  that 
of  Lord  Melbourne,  he  offered  Mr.  Gladstone  the 
post  of  Junior  Lord  of  the  Treasury.  This  was 
a  tolerable  success  for  a  young  man  in  the  twen- 
ty-fifth year  of  his  age,  and  at  the  close  of  his 
second  parliamentary  session.  But  it  was  the 
prelude  to  even  more  rapid  advancement.  Parlia- 
ment had  scarcely  met  for  the  session  of  1835 
when  he  was  installed  in  the  office  of  Under- 
secretary for  the  Colonies,  and  lost  no  time  in 
bringing  in  his  first  bill — a  measure  designed  to 
improve  the  condition  of  passengers  in  merchant 
vessels.  The  ministry  was,  however,  too  short- 
lived for  this  humble  effort  to  be  added  to  the 
accomplishments  of  the  statute-book.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's young  hopes  received  a  temporary  blow 
from  contact  with  the  question  of  the  Irish 
Church,  which  has  exercised  so  important  an  in- 
fluence on  later  stages  of  his  career.  It  was  on 
a  resolution  containing  the  nucleus  of  the  Irish 
Church  bill  of  1869  that  the  first  ministry  of 


32  WILLIAM   EWART  GLADSTONE. 

which  he  formed  a  member  was  defeated,  and 
forced  to  resign." 

In  his  speech  on  this  -resolution  Mr.  Gladstone 
declared  that  the  system  involved  in  the  Church 
of  Ireland  involved  the  existence  of  all  Church 
establishments,  and  added  :  "If  in  the  adminis- 
tration of  this  great  country  the  elements  of  re- 
ligion should  not  enter — if  those  who  were  called 
upon  to  guide  it  in  its  career  should  be  forced  to 
listen  to  the  caprices  and  to  the  whims  of  every 
body  of  visionaries,  they  would  lose  that  station 
all  great  men  were  hitherto  proud  of.  He  hoped 
that  he  should  never  live  to  see  the  day  when  any 
principle  leading  to  such  a  result  would  be  adopted 
in  this  country." 

During  the  next  five  or  six  years  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  in  Opposition ;  but,  whether  in  office  or  out, 
his  reputation  steadily  increased,  and  he  gradually 
became  recognized  as  the  ablest  lieutenant  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel,  the  great  Conservative  chief.  He 
spoke  frequently  in  debates,  and  the  growth  of 
his  position  in  the  country  as  well  as  in  Parlia- 
ment is  testified  to  by  the  fact  that  in  1837, 
when  only  in  his  twenty-eighth  year,  he  was  in- 
vited to  stand  as  the  Tory  candidate  for  the 
great  city  of  Manchester.  He  declined,  having 
already  pledged  himself  to  Newark,  and  not 
being  disposed  to  give  up  a  safe  seat  for  a  high- 
ly uncertain  one  ;  but  he  was  run,  neverthe- 
less, and  polled  such  an  unexpectedly  large  num- 


IN  PARLIAMENT.  33 

her  of  votes  as  to  show  unmistakably  his  great 
popularity. 

In  the  following  Parliament,  which  was  the 
first  of  Queen  Victoria  (1838),  there  being  another 
stormy  revival  of  the  anti-slavery  Agitation,  Mr. 
Gladstone  delivered  a  long  and  powerful  speech 
on  negro  apprenticeship  in  the  West  Indies, 
which,  though  on  the  unpopular  side  of  the  ques- 
tion, confessedly  lifted  him  to  the  front  rank  of 
Parliamentary  orators.  In  this  year,  also,  Mr. 
Gladstone  issued  his  first  published  work,  "  The 
State  in  its  Eolations  with  the  Church/'  in  a  re- 
view of  which  in  the  ''Edinburgh  Keview" 
Macau  lay  described  its  author  in  a  famous  sen- 
tence as  "  a  young  man  of  unblemished  character, 
and  of  distinguished  Parliamentary  talents,  the 
rising  hope  of  those  stern  and  unbending  Tories 
who  follow  reluctantly  and  mutinously  a  leader 
whose  experience  and  eloquence  are  indispensable 
to  them,  but  whose  cautious  temper  and  moder- 
ate opinions  they  abhor."  According  to  Ma- 
caulay,  the  theory  of  the  book  is  based  upon  the 
proposition  that  the  propagation  of  religious 
truth  is  one  of  the  chief  ends  of  government; 
and  one  of  its  doctrines  which  he  confutes 
with  especial  warmth  is  the  principle  which, 
as  he  states  it,  "  would  give  the  Irish  a  Prot- 
estant Church,  whether  they  like  it  or  not."  It 
is  a  curious  fact  that  the  author  of  the  book 
which  contained  this  doctrine  was  the  author  of 
3 


34  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

the  disestablishment  of  the  State  Church  in  Ire- 
land. 

Mr.  Gladstone's  essay  passed  rapidly  through 
several  editions,  and  in  1840  he  followed  it  up 
with  another,  work  on  a  subject  nearly  related 
thereto,  entitled  "  Church  Principles  Considered 
in  their  Eesults,"  the  object  of  which  "  was  to  pre- 
sent a  familiar  or  partial  representation  of  the 
moral  characteristics  and  effects  of  those  doctrines 
which  are  now,  more  than  ever,  felt  in  the  English 
Church  to  be  full  of  intrinsic  value,  and  which 
likewise  appear  to  have  much  special  adaptation  to 
the  circumstances  of  the  time. "  Still  another  work, 
written  at  a  much  later  period,  but  requiring  to 
be  considered  along  with  these  early  ecclesiastical 
writings,  is  "A  Chapter  of  Autobiography."  This 
latter  was  published  in  1868,  and  attempts  to  ex- 
plain the  reasons  for  that  great  change  of  opinion 
which  led  the  author  of  "  The  State'  in  its  Rela- 
tions with  the  Church  "  to  take  the  leading  part 
in  destroying  the  fabric  of  the  Irish  Church.  It 
is  what  it  professes  to  be,  a  genuine  chapter  of  au- 
tobiography ;  and  it  should  be  read  by  all  who 
would  understand  Mr.  Gladstone's  character  and 
the  inmost  workings  of  his  mind. 

The  first  treatise  was  "inscribed  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford ;  tried  and  not  found  wanting 
through  the  vicissitudes  of  a  thousand  years  ;  in 
the  belief  that  she  is  providentially  designed  to 
be  a  fountain  of  blessings,  spiritual,  social,  and 


IN  PARLIAMENT.  35 

intellectual,  to  this  and  to  other  countries,  to  the 
present  and  future  times ;  and  in  the  hope  that 
the  temper  of  these  pages  may  be  found  not  alien 
from  her  own."  Both  the  compliment  and  the 
tract  were  highly  acceptable  to  Oxford,  and  she 
did  not  forget  either  when,  eight  years  later,  a 
change  in  the  political  relations  of  the  member  for 
Newark  necessitated  his  looking  for  another  seat. 
"In  other  directions  than  that  of  literature 
and  the  Church,"  says  Mr.  Lucy,  "the  rising 
hope  of  the  stern  unbending  Tories  justified  the 
description  of  the  Edinburgh  reviewer.  We  find 
him  at  this  period  lending  the  weight  of  his  elo- 
quence and  the  force  of  his  genius  to  stopping 
the  progress  of  Reform  in  whatever  direction  it 
was  urged.  He  opposed  a  ministerial  scheme  for 
dealing  with  the  Church  rates  in  deference  to  the 
views  of  Dissenters.  He  passionately  defended 
negro  apprenticeship,  the  last  vestige  of  slavery 
permitted  in  the  West  Indies.  He  opposed  a 
scheme  of  national  education  in  which,  as  Lord 
Morpeth  put  it,  '  it  was  declared  to  be  the  duty 
of  the  State  to  provide  education  for  Dissenters 
so  long  as  it  fingered  their  gold,'  and  he  fought 
hard  in  the  long  battle  against  the  bill  designed 
to  remove  the  civil  disabilities  of  Jews.  He  was 
always  thorough,  and,  being  in  these  days  of  par- 
tially developed  intelligence  a  Tory,  he  was,  to 
borrow  a  phrase  of  Dick  Swiveller's  friend  the 
Marchioness,  *  a  nout-an'-nouter. '" 


36  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Mr.  Gladstone  being  now  launched  on  the  full 
tide  of  Parliamentary  success,  the  reader  will 
probably  be  glad  to  obtain  a  closer  and  more  per- 
sonal view  of  him  at  this  period  ;  and  fortunately 
the  material  is  at  hand.  In  a  little  book  entitled 
"  The  British  Senate  in  1838,"  the  author,  among 
many  other  piquant  personal  descriptions  of  emi- 
nent men,  sketches  the  following  portrait  of  "  the 
mo^b  rising  young  man  on  the  Tory  side  of  the 
House"  : 

"Mr.  Gladstone's  appearance  and  manners  are 
much  in  his  favor.  He  is  a  fine-looking  man. 
He  is  about  the  usual  height,  and  of  good  figure. 
His  countenance  is  mild  and  pleasant,  and  has  a 
highly  intellectual  expression.  His  eyes  are  clear 
and  quick.  His  eyebrows  are  dark  and  rather 
prominent.  There  is  not  a  dandy  in  the  House 
but  envies  what  Truefit  would  call  his  '  fine  head 
of  jet-black  hair.'  It  is  always  carefully  parted 
from  the  crown  downward  to  his  brow,  where  it 
is  tastefully  shaded.  His  features  are  small  and 
regular,  and  his  complexion  must  be  a  very  un- 
worthy witness  if  he  does  not  possess  an  abundant 
stock  of  health. 

"Mr.  Gladstone's  gesture  is  varied,  but  not 
violent.  When  he  rises  he  generally  puts  both 
his  hands  behind  his  back  ;  and  having  there  suf- 
fered them  to  embrace  each  other  for  a  short 
time,  he  unclasps  them,  and  allows  them  to  drop 
on  either  side.  They  are  not  permitted  to  remain 


IN  PARLIAMENT.  37 

long  in  that  locality  before  you  see  them  again 
closed  together  and  hanging  down  before  him. 
Their  reunion  is  not  suffered  to  last  for  any  length 
of  time.  Again  a  separation  takes  place,  and  now 
the  right  hand  is  seen  moving  up  and  down  be- 
fore him.  Having  thus  exercised  it  a  little,  he 
thrusts  it  into  the  pocket  of  his  coat,  and  then 
orders  the  left  hand  to  follow  its  example.  Hav- 
ing granted  them  a  momentary  repose  there,  they 
are  again  put  into  gentle  motion ;  and  in  a  few 
seconds  they  are  seen  reposing  vis-a-vis  on  his 
breast.  He  moves  his  face  and  body  from  one 
direction  to  another,  not  forgetting  to  bestow  a 
liberal  share  of  his  attention  on  his  own  party. 
He  is  always  listened  to  with  much  attention  by 
the  House,  and  appears  to  be  highly  respected  by 
men  of  all  parties.  He  is  a  man  of  good  business 
habits  ;  of  this  he  furnished  abundant  proof  when 
Under-Secretary  for  the  Colonies,  during  the 
short-lived  administration  of  Sir  Robert  PeeL  .  .  . 
"  He  is  well  informed  on  most  of  the  subjects 
which  usually  occupy  the  attention  of  the  Legis- 
lature ;  and  he  is  happy  in  turning  his  informa- 
tion to  good  account.  He  is  ready  on  all  occa- 
sions which  he  deems  fitting  ones  with  a  speech 
in  favor  of  the  policy  advocated  by  the  party  with 
whom  he  acts.  His  extempore  resources  are  am- 
ple. Few  men  in  the  House  can  improvise  better. 
It  does  not  appear  to  cost  him  an  effort  to  speak. 
.  .  .  His  style  is  polished,  but  has  no  appearance 


38  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

of  tlie  effect  of  previous  preparation.  He  dis- 
plays considerable  acuteness  in  replying  to  an  op- 
ponent ;  he  is  quick  in  his  perception  of  anything 
vulnerable  in  the  speech  to  which  he  replies,  and 
happy  in  laying  the  weak  point  bare  to  the  gaze 
of  the  House.  He  now  and  then  indulges  in 
sarcasm,  which  is,  in  most  cases,  very  felici- 
tous. He  is  plausible  even  when  most  in  error. 
When  it  suits  himself  or  his  party,  he  can  apply 
himself  with  the  strictest  closeness  to  the  real 
point  at  issue  ;  when  to  evade  the  point  is  deemed 
most  politic,  no  man  can  wander  from  it  more 
widely." 

Another  writer  tells  us  that  during  his  first 
years  in  Parliament  he  was  known  as  "  handsome 
Gladstone,"  and  was  often  pointed  out  as  the  best- 
looking  young  man  in  the  House.  At  the  time 
of  his  second  election  for  Newark,  one  of  the 
local  journals  declared  him  to  be  "  not  more  re- 
markable for  his  extraordinary  talents  than  for 
his  amiable  manners."  And  Mr.  Smith  says  : 
"  The  field  of  politics  was  at  this  time  conspicu- 
ous for  the  bitterness  of  its  encounters,  but  Mr. 
Gladstone  held  himself  aloof  from  mere  gladiato- 
rial exhibitions,  and  earned  the  respect  of  the 
whole  House  by  his  courteous  bearing  and  the 
general  urbanity  of  his  manners. "  Yet  he  was  a 
very  fervid  speaker.  Even  in  his  early  days  at 
the  Oxford  Union,  we  are  assured  that  the  ear- 
nestness and  intensity  of  his  language  and  bear- 


IX  PARLIAMENT.  39 

ing  were   sometimes  painful;    "conviction  was 
stamped  on  every  word  he  uttered." 

To  this  period  also  belongs  a  domestic  occur- 
rence which,  together  with  other  personal  mat- 
ters, may  conveniently  be  mentioned  here.  Says 
Mr.  Smith  :  "  In  the  month  of  July,  1839,  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  married  to  a  lady  who  is  almost  as 
distinguished  for  her  many  benevolent  and  social 
qualities  as  Mr.  Gladstone  is  in  political  and  public 
life.  The  name  of  Mrs.  Gladstone  is  widely  known 
as  that  of  a  practical  philanthropist,  while  to  Mr. 
Gladstone  himself — we  may,  perhaps,  be  pardoned 
for  saying  —  she  has  ever  been  that  interested 
sharer  in  his  triumphs  and  consoler  in  his  defeats 
which  the  late  Viscountess  Beaconsfield  was  to 
his  Parliamentary  rival.  Mrs.  Gladstone  was  Miss 
Catherine  Glynne,  daughter  of  Sir  Stephen  Rich- 
ard Glynne,  of  Hawarden  Castle,  Flintshire. 
Their  union  has  been  blessed  by  eight  children, 
all  of  whom,  save  one,  still  survive.  Of  the  four 
sons,  the  eldest,  William  Henry,  is  a  member  of 
the  Legislature,  and  the  second,  the  Rev.  Stephen 
Edward  Gladstone,  is  rector  of  Hawarden.  The 
third  and  fourth  sons  are  named  Henry  Neville 
and  Herbert  John  Gladstone  respectively.  The 
former  pursues  a  commercial  career.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's eldest  daughter,  Anne,  is  married  to  the 
Rev.  E.  C.  Wickham,  M.  A.,  head-master  of  Wel- 
lington College  ;  the  second  daughter,  Miss  Cath- 
erine Jessy  Gladstone,  died  in  1850.  Two  other 


40  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

daughters  still  survive,  in  addition  to  Mrs.  Wick- 
ham,  viz.,  the  Misses  Mary  and  Helen  Gladstone. 
As  Sir  John  Gladstone  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
his  son  William  Ewart  a  member  of  the  same 
Senate  with  himself,  so  Mr.  Gladstone  has  wit- 
nessed his  eldest  son  in  turn  take  his  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons  as  member  for  Whitby.  Mrs. 
Gladstone's  sister,  Miss  Mary  Glynne,  became  the 
wife  of  Lord  Lyttelton,  with  whom  Mr.  Glad- 
stone was  on  terms  of  the  most  intimate  friend- 
ship until  his  lordship's  untoward  and  lamented 
death." 


IV. 

IN   AND   OUT   OF   OFFICE. 

FOR  several  years  previous  to  1841  the  Whig 
ministry  had  been  growing  unpopular,  and  in 
June  of  that  year  was  defeated  by  a  small  majori- 
ty on  a  motion  of  want  of  confidence.  Instead  of 
resigning,  Lord  John  Russell,  the  Whig  leader, 
dissolved  Parliament  and  appealed  to  the  constit- 
uencies ;  but  the  result  of  a  general  election  was 
the  return  of  a  heavy  Tory  majority,  and  the  con- 
sequent accession  to  power  of  Sir  Robert  Peel. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  again  returned  for  jSJewurk 
at  the  head  of  the  poll,  and  in  the  new  ministry 
received  the  dual  appointments  of  Vice-President 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  OFFICE.  41 

of  the  Board  of  Trade  and  Master  of  the  Mint. 
It  was  said  at  the  time  that  he  was  given  two 
laborious  offices  in  order,  if  possible,  to  keep  him 
quiet,  and,  by  giving  him  too  much  to  do,  to  pre- 
vent him  from  troubling  himself  about  the  Church. 
If  that  was  the  object,  it  was  certainly  effective, 
for  a  time  at  least,  for  Mr.  Gladstone  was  soon 
absorbed  in  his  official  and  Parliamentary  work, 
and  for  many  years  his  theological  disquisitions 
were  suspended. 

It  was  during  the  session  of  1842  that  Sir 
Eobert  Peel  brought  forward  his  new  sliding  scale 
of  Corn  Duties.  He  proposed  that  a  duty  of 
twenty  shillings  should  be  levied  when  wheat  was 
at  fifty-one  shillings  per  quarter,  to  descend  to 
one  shilling  when  the  price  was  seventy-three, 
with  rests  at  intermediate  prices,  intended  to 
diminish  the  possibility  of  tampering  with  the 
averages.  The  measure  was  vigorously  assailed 
by  Lord  John  Russell  and  as  vigorously  defended 
by  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  said  in  the  course  of  his 
speech  that,  "between  the  opposite  extremes  of 
those  who  thought  with  the  Anti-Corn-Law  Con- 
vention, and  those  who  thought  with  the  Agri- 
cultural Association  of  Boston,  he  believed  that 
the  measure  of  the  Government  was  a  fair  me- 
dium ;  and  that  it  would  give  relief  to  consumers, 
steadiness  to  prices,  and  increase  to  foreign  trade, 
and  a  general  improvement  to  the  condition  of 
the  country."  It  is  noteworthy  that  at  this 


42  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

period  a  motion  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Vil- 
liers  for  the  immediate  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws 
was  defeated  by  the  enormous  majority  of  393 
to  90. 

"  The  second  branch  of  the  financial  plan  of 
the  Government,"  says  Mr.  Smith,  "the  revised 
Tariff  or  Customs  Duties  scheme,  was  a  formi- 
dable undertaking.  Though  brought  into  the 
House  by  the  Prime  Minister,  it  was  understood 
to  be  almost  wholly  the  work  of  his  able  lieuten- 
ant, Mr.  Gladstone.  Out  of  some  twelve  hundred 
duty-paying  articles,  a  total  abolition,  or  a  con- 
siderable reduction,  took  place  in  no  fewer  than 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  of  such  articles.  Sir 
Robert  Peel's  boast,  that  he  had  endeavored  to 
relieve  manufacturing  industry,  was  more  than 
justified  by  this  great  and  comprehensive  measure. 
He  had  acknowledged,  amid  loud  chee*rs  from  the 
opposition,  that  all  were  agreed  in  the  general 
rule  that  we  should  purchase  in  the  cheapest 
market  and  sell  in  the  dearest ;  but  he  added,  '  If 
I  proposed  a  greater  change  in  the  Corn  Laws 
than  that  which  I  submit  to  the  consideration  of 
the  House,  I  should  only  aggravate  the  distress  of 
the  country,' and  only  increase  the  alarm  which 
prevails  among  important  interests.'  Mr.  Hume, 
however,  hailed  with  joy  the  appearance  of  the 
Premier  and  his  colleagues  as  converts  to  the 
•principles  of  Free  Trade.  Mr.  Gladstone  replied 
that,  though  it  was  not  worth  while  now  to  discuss 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  OFFICE.  43 

who  were  the  authors  of  the  principles  on  which 
the  Government  measure  was  founded,  he  must 
enter  his  protest  against  the  statement  that  the 
ministry  came  forward  as  converts  to  principles 
which  they  had  formerly  opposed.  The  late  Gov- 
ernment had  certainly  done  very  little  for  the 
principles  of  commercial  relaxation. 

"Again  and  again,  during  the  progress  of  the 
Tariffs  Bill,  was  Mr.  Gladstone  called  upon  to 
defend  the  details  of  the  Government  scheme. 
Something  was  said  upon  almost  every  article  of 
consumption  included  in  or  excluded  from  the 
plan  ;  but  it  was  admitted  on  all  hands  that  great 
fiscal  reforms  had  been  conceived  and  executed. 
No  measure  with  which  Mr.  Gladstone's  name 
has  since  been  connected  more  fully  attested  his 
mastery  over  detail,  his  power  of  comprehending 
the  commercial  interests  of  the  country,  or  his 
capacity  as  a  practical  statesman  in  suggesting  the 
best  means  for  relieving  the  manufacturing  indus- 
tries of  their  burdens,  than  the  revised  Tariff 
scheme  of  1842.  Some  idea  of  the  strain  involved 
upon  him  during  this  session  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  Hansard  records  he  rose  to  his 
feet  no  fewer  than  one  hundred  and  twenty-nine 
times,  in  connection  with  measures  before  the 
House,  but  chiefly  touching  the  provisions  of  the 
Tariff  bill." 

Harriet  Marti neau,  a  writer  by  no  means  par- 
tial to  the  Tories,  says  of  the  session  of  1842  (in 


44  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

her  "History  of  England  during  the  Thirty 
Years'  Peace  ")  :  "  The  nation  saw  and  felt  that 
its  business  was  understood  and  accomplished, 
and  the  House  of  Commons  was  no  longer  like  a 
sleeper  under  a  nightmare.  The  long  session  was 
a  busy  one:  The  Queen  wore  a  cheerful  air  when 
she  thanked  her  Parliament  for  their  effectual 
labors.  The  opposition  was  such  as  could  no 
longer  impede  the  operations  of  the  next  session. 
The  condition  of  the  country  was  fearful  enough  ; 
but  something  was  done  for  its  future  improve- 
ment, and  the  way  was  now  shown  to  be  open  for 
further  beneficent  legislation." 

The  condition  of  the  country  did  not  improve 
during  the  recess,  and  the  growing  distress  nerved 
the  Corn-Law  reformers  to  renewed  efforts.  At 
the  very  beginning  of  the  session  of  1843  Lord 
Howick  called  for  a  committee  of  the  whole  House 
to  consider  the  reference  in  the  Queen's  Speech  to 
the  long-continued  depression  of  manufacturing 
industry.  This  was  regarded  as  an  indirect  blow 
at  the  Corn  Laws,  and  was  energetically  and  suc- 
cessfully opposed  both  by  Mr.  Gladstone  and  by 
Sir  Eobert  Peel.  Twice  again  during  the  session 
the  same  question  was  raised,  and  as  often  defeated 
by  large  majorities,  though  signs  were  not  want- 
ing that  both  of  the  great  political  parties  were 
tending  toward  a  relaxation  of  their  more  rigid 
Protectionist  doctrines. 

In  this  year  (1843)  Mr.  Gladstone  succeeded 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  OFFICE.  45 

the  Earl  of  Ripon  as  President  of  the  Board  of 
Trade,  and,  in  this  capacity,  carried,  among  other 
measures,  an  important  bill  controlling  the  then 
young  domestic  institution  of  railways.  "  Since 
the  year  1843,"  says  Mr.  Lucy,  "  Mr.  Gladstone 
has  done  so  much  for  the  people  that  his  compara- 
tively minor  achievements  are  lost  sight  of.  It  is, 
nevertheless,  interesting  to  recall  the  fact  that  he 
was  the  author  of  .the  Parliamentary  train  which 
travels  the  full  length  of  all  lines  twice  a  day  at 
a  fare  of  one  penny  a  mile — perhaps  a  more  use- 
ful work  than  his  essay  on  'The  State  in  its 
Relations  with  the  Church,'  or  even  his  pamphlet 
on  '  Vaticanism.' " 

During  the  session  of  1844  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
very  busy  with  the  duties  of  his  department,  and 
took  a  leading  part  in  all  the  important  debates  ; 
but  scarcely  had  Parliament  met  in  1845  when  it 
became  known  that  he  had  resigned  his  post  in 
the  ministry.  This  step  was  due  to  scruples  of 
conscience  about  Sir  Robert  Peel's  measure  for 
increasing  the  endowment  of  Maynooth  College, 
an  Irish  Catholic  institution,  and  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  "Godless  colleges"  in  Ireland.  Re- 
ferring to  it,  in  his  "  History  of  Our  Own  Times," 
Mr.  Justin  McCarthy  says  :  "  He  acted,  perhaps, 
witli  a  too  sensitive  chivalry.  He  had  written  a 
work,  as  all  the  world  knows,  on  the  relations  of 
Church  and  State,  and  he  did  not  think  the  views 
expressed  in  that  book  left  him  free  to  cooperate 


46  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

in  the  ministerial  measure.  Some  staid  politi- 
cians were  shocked ;  many  more  smiled ;  not  a 
few  sneered.  The  public  in  general  applauded 
the  disinterestedness  which  dictated  the  young 
statesman's  act." 

In  his  speech  explaining  the  motives  of  his 
resignation,  Mr.  Gladstone  said:  "I  am  sensible 
how  fallible  my  judgment  is,  and  how  easily  I 
might  have  erred ;  but  still  it  has  been  my  con- 
viction that  although  I  was  not  to  fetter  my  judg- 
ment as  a  member  of  Parliament  by  a  reference  to 
abstract  theories,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  was 
absolutely  due  to  the  public  and  due  to  myself 
that  I  should,  so  far  as  in  me  lay,  place  myself  in 
a  position  to  form  an  opinion  upon  a  matter  of  so 
great  importance,  that  should  not  only  be  actually 
free  from  all  bias  or  leaning  with  respect  to  any 
consideration  whatsoever,  but  an  opinion  that 
should  be  unsuspected.  On  tliat  account,  I  have 
taken  a  course  most  painful  to  myself  in  respect 
to  personal  feelings,  and  have  separated  myself 
from  men  with  whom,  and  under  whom,  I  have 
long  acted  in  public  life,  and  of  whom  I  am  bound 
to  say — although  I  have  now  no  longer  the  honor 
of  serving  my  most  gracious  Sovereign — that  1 
continue  to  regard  them  with  unaltered  senti- 
ments both  of  public  regard  and  private  attach- 
ment." Mr.  Gladstone  added  that  he  was  not 
prepared  to  war  against  the  religious  measures  of 
his  friend,  Sir  Robert  Peel.  .  He  would  not  pre- 


IN  AND   OUT  OF  OFFICE.  47 

judge  such  questions,  but  would  give  to  them 
calm  atid  deliberate  consideration.  A  high  tribute 
was  paid  to  the  retiring  minister,  both  by  Lord 
John  Russell  and  the  Premier.  The  latter  avowed 
the  highest  respect  and  admiration  for  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's character  and  abilities  ;  admiration  only 
equaled  by  regard  for  his  private  character.  He 
had  been  most  unwilling  to  lose  one  whom  he 
regarded  as  capable  of  the  highest  and  most 
eminent  services.  By  an  act  of  strict  conscien- 
tiousness, Mr.  Gladstone  thus  severed  himself 
from  a  ministry  in  which  he  had  rapidly  risen  to 
power  and  influence.  His  motives  were  appre- 
ciated by  men  of  all  parties,  and  it  was  generally 
predicted  that  one  so  useful  to  the  State  could  not 
long  remain  in  the  position  of  a  private  member. 

Nor  was  the  fulfillment  of  the  prediction  long 
delayed.  "  Famine  had  forced  Peel's  hand  "  ; 
and  in  December,  1845,  the  "  Times  "  announced 
that  Parliament  would  be  summoned  for  the  first 
week  in  January,  and  that  the  Royal  Speech 
would  recommend  an  immediate  consideration  of 
the  Corn  Laws,  preparatory  to  their  total  repeal. 
"Few  chapters  of  political  history  in  modern 
times,"  says  Mr.  McCarthy,  "have  given  rise  to 
more  controversy  than  that  which  contains  the 
story  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  administration  in  its 
dealing  with  the  Corn  Laws.  Told  in  the  briefest 
form,  the  story  is  that  Peel  came  into  office  in 
1841  to  maintain  the  Corn  Laws,  and  that  in  1846 


48  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

he  repealed  them.  The  controversy  as  to  the 
wisdom  or  unwisdom  of  repealing  the  Corn  Laws 
has  long  since  come  to  an  end.  They  who  were 
the  uncompromising  opponents  of  Free  Trade  at 
that  time  are  proud  to  call  themselves  its  uncom- 
promising zealots  now.  Indeed,  there  is  no  more 
chance  of  a  reaction  against  Free  Trade  in  England 
than  there  is  of  a  reaction  against  the  rule  of  three. 
But  the  controversy  still  exists,  and  will  proba- 
bly always  be  in  dispute,  as  to  the  conduct  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel.  .  .  .  Sir  Eobert  Peel's  government 
came  into  power  distinctly  pledged  to  uphold 
the  principle  of  protection  for  home-grown  grain. 
Four  years  after  this,  Sir  Eobert  Peel  proposed 
the  total  abolition  of  the  corn  duties.  For  this 
he  was  denounced  by  some  members  of  his  party 
in  language  more  fierce  and  unmeasured  than  ever 
since  has  been  applied  to  any  leading  statesman. 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  never  assailed  by  the  staunchest 
supporter  of  the  Irish  Church  in  words  so  vitu- 
perative as  those  which  rated  Sir  Robert  Peel  for 
his  supposed  apostasy.  One  eminent  person,  at 
least  [Mr.  Disraeli],  made  his  first  fame  as  a  Par- 
liamentary orator  by  his  denunciations  of  the  great 
minister  whom  he  had  previously  eulogized  and 
supported." 

The  first  result  of  Sir  Robert  Peel's  announce- 
ment was  a  rupture  of  his  Cabinet  and  the  secession 
of  several  of  its  leading  members  ;  in  consequence 
of  which,  Sir  Robert  tendered  his  resignation  to 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  OFFICE.  49 

her  Majesty.  Lord  John  Russell,  the  Whig  leader, 
was  accordingly  summoned  to  form  a  ministry  ; 
but,  failing  in  this,  the  Queen  requested  Sir  Rob- 
ert to  withdraw  his  resignation.  He  reluctantly 
resumed  office,  and,  when  his  reconstructed  Cabi- 
net was  made  known,  it  was  found  that  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  succeeded  Lord  Stanley  as  Secre- 
tary of  State  for  the  Colonies. 

Of  course,  in  accepting  office  under  these  cir- 
cumstances, Mr.  Gladstone  pledged  himself  to  go 
the  full  length  of  Peel's  Free-Trade  policy ;  and 
Mr.  Smith  says :  "  It  is  no  secret  that  the 
most  advanced  statesman  on  the  Free-Trade  ques- 
tion in  the  Peel  Cabinet  was  Mr.  Gladstone.  The 
policy  of  the  Government  in  regard  to  the  great 
measure  of  1846  was  largely  molded  by  him,  and 
his  representations  of  the  effects  of  Free  Trade  on 
the  industry  of  the  country  and  the  general  well- 
being  of  the  people  strengthened  the  Premier  in 
his  resolve  to  sweep  away  the  obnoxious  corn 
laws.  The  pamphlet  *  on  recent  commercial  legis- 
lation had  prepared  the  way  for  the  later  momen- 
tous changes  ;  and  to  Mr.  Gladstone  is  due  much 
of  the  credit  for  the  speedy  consummation  of  the 
Free-Trade  policy  of  the  Peel  ministry.  In  the 
official  sphere  he  may  be  regarded,  perhaps,  as 
the  leading  pioneer  of  the  movement." 

*  While. out  of  office  Mr.  Gladstone  had  published  a  para- 
pblct  entitled  "  Remarks  upon  Recent  Commercial  Legislation." 

4 


50  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

In  view  of  this  it  is  a  remarkable  and  regret- 
able  fact  that,  during  the  session  in  which  the 
great  measure  was  debated  and  carried,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone was  without  a  seat  in  Parliament.  The 
Duke  of  Newcastle,  under  whose  patronage  he 
had  secured  and  held  the  seat  for  Newark,  being 
a  rigid  Protectionist  and  a  bitter  opponent  of  the 
new  policy,  he  felt  that  he  could  not  continue  to 
represent  the  borough  without  loss  of  dignity,  and 
accordingly  resigned.  When  he  returned  in  1847 
as  Member  for  Oxford  University,  the  Corn  Law 
Repeal  Act  was  passed ;  Sir  Eobert  Peel,  having 
accomplished  his  great  work,  and  thereby  alienated 
many  of  his  supporters,  was  relegated  to  the  Op- 
position benches  ;  and  the  Whigs  were  enjoying  a 
new  lease  of  power. 

The  first  important  debate  in  which  Mr.  Glad- 
stone took  part  after  his  return  was  significant  as 
indicating  his  growing  liberality  of  opinion.  In 
1841  he  had  crossed  swords  with  Macaulay  in  op- 
posing the  Jews  Ciyil  Disabilities  Eemoval  bill ; 
but,  when  in  the  general  election  of  1847  Baron 
Rothschild  was  returned  for  the  city  of  London, 
and  Lord  John  Russell  proposed  to  enable  him  to 
take  his  seat  by  passing  a  bill  affirming  the  eligibil- 
ity of  Jews  to  all  offices  to  which  Roman  Catholics 
were  admissible  by  law,  he  supported  the  measure 
in  a  forcible  and  convincing  speech.  Explaining 
that,  when  he  opposed  the  last  law  for  the  removal 
of  Jewish  disabilities,  he  had  foreseen  that,  if  we 


IN   AND  OUT   OF   OFFICE.  51 

gave  the  Jew  municipal,  magisterial,  and  execu- 
tive functions,  we  could  not  refuse  him  legislative 
functions  any  longer,  he  continued  :  "  The  Jew 
was  refused  entrance  into  that  House,  because  he 
would  then  be  a  maker  of  the  laws  ;  but  who  made 
the  maker  of  the  law  ?  The  constituencies  ;  and 
into  these  constituencies  we  had  admitted  the 
Jews.  Now,  were  the  constituencies  Christian 
constituencies  ?  If  they  were,  was  it  probable 
that  the  Parliament  would  cease  to  be  a  Christian 
Parliament?"  He  concluded  by  saying,  "that 
he  was  of  opinion  that,  if  they  admitted  Jews  into 
Parliament,  prejudice  might  be  awakened  for  a 
while,  but  the  good  sense  of  the  people  would 
soon  allay  it,  and  members  would  have  the  conso- 
lation of  knowing  that  in  a  case  of  difficulty  they 
had  yielded  to  a  sense  of  justice,  and  by  so  doing 
had  not  disparaged  religion  nor  lowered  Christi- 
anity, but  had  rather  elevated  both  in  all  reflect- 
ing and  well-regulated  minds." 

During  the  next  two  or  three  sessions  Mr. 
Gladstone  played  the  ordinary  part  of  an  active 
and  vigilant  member  of  the  Opposition,  partici- 
pating in  most  of  the  principal  debates,  defending 
the  commercial  policy  inaugurated  by  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  and  increasing  his  reputation  both  in  the 
House  and  in  the  country.  The  most  memorable 
debate  of  this  period  occurred  during  the  session 
of  1850,  and  as  his  share  of  it  Mr.  Gladstone  de- 
livered the  finest  and  most  powerful  speech  that 


52  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

he  had  yet  made  in  Parliament — one  which  was 
recognized  as  fully  entitled  to  rank  with  the  re- 
markable orations  of  Lord  Palmerston,  Sir  Eobert 
Peel,  Mr.  Cobden,  and  Mr.  Disraeli.  The  debate 
arose  out  of  the  affairs  of  Greece.  The  Greek 
Government  having  refused  certain  demands  for 
compensation  which  the  English  Government  had 
made  on  behalf  of  certain  English  subjects,  Ad- 
miral Sir  William  Parker  was  ordered  to  proceed 
to  Athens,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  satisfac- 
tion. Failing  in  this,  the  Admiral  blockaded  the 
Piraeus.  "The  news  of  this  somewhat  high- 
handed proceeding  produced  dissatisfaction  in 
certain  quarters  in  England,  the  policy  being  con- 
demned as  unworthy  of  the  dignity,  and  discred- 
itable to  the  reputation,  of  a  power  like  Great 
Britain.  The  debates  in  both  Houses  initiated 
upon  this  Greek  question  took  a  wider  scope  than 
the  facts  just  enumerated,  and  eventually  included 
our  relations  with  France.  The  stability  of  the 
"Whig  administration  depended  upon  the  results 
of  the  discussions."  Lord  Palmerston,  the  For- 
eign Minister,  whose  policy  was  thus  assailed,  de- 
fended himself  energetically  in  a  speech  of  nearly 
five  hours'  duration.  "At  its  close  he  challenged 
the  verdict  of  the  House  whether  the  principles 
which  had  guided  the  foreign  policy  of  her  Majes- 
ty's ministers  had  been  proper  and  fitting,  and 
whether,  as  a  subject  of  ancient  Eome  could  hold 
himself  free  from  indignity  by  saying  Civis  Ro- 


IN  AND  OUT  OF  OFFICE.  53 

manus  sum,  a  British  subject  in  a  foreign  country 
should  not  be  protected  by  the  vigilant  eye  and 
the  strong  arm  of  the  Government  against  injus- 
tice and  wrong." 

Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  speech  went  over  the 
whole  foreign  relations  of  the  Government,  dis- 
cussed with  much  minuteness  the  special  circum- 
stances of  the  quarrel  with  Greece,  and  replied  in 
the  following  fine  passage  to  Lord  Palmerston's 
allusion  to  the  Roman  citizen  : 

"  Sir,  great  as  is  the  influence  and  power  of  Britain, 
she  can  not  afford  to  follow,  for  any  length  of  time,  a 
self-isolating  policy.  It  would  be  a  contravention  of  the 
law  of  nature  and  of  God,  if  it  were  possible  for  any 
single  nation  of  Christendom  to  emancipate  itself  from 
the  obligations  which  bind  all  other  nations,  and  to  arro- 
gate, in  the  face  of  mankind,  a  position  of  peculiar  privi- 
lege. And  now  I  will  grapple  with  the  noble  lord  on 
the  ground  which  he  selected  for  himself,  in  the  most 
triumphant  portion  of  his  speech,  by  his  reference  to 
those  emphatic  words,  Civis  Romanus  sum.  He  vaunted, 
amid  the  cheers  of  his  supporters,  that  under  his  admin- 
istration an  Englishman  should  be,  throughout  the  world, 
what  the  citizen  of  Rome  had  been.  What  then,  sir, 
was  a  Roman  citizen  ?  He  was  the  member  of  a  privi- 
leged caste ;  he  belonged  to  a  conquering  race,  to  a  na- 
tion that  held  all  others  bound  down  by  the  strong  arm 
of  power.  For  him  there  was  to  be  an  exceptional  sys- 
tem of  law ;  for  him  principles  were  to  be  asserted,  and 
by  him  rights  were  to  be  enjoyed,  that  were  denied  to 
the  rest  of  the  world.  Is  such,  then,  the  view  of  the 
noble  lord  as  to  the  relation  which  is  to  subsist  between 


54  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

England  and  other  countries  ?  Does  he  make  the  claim 
for  us  that  we  are  to  be  uplifted  upon  a  platform  high 
above  the  standing-ground  of  all  other  nations?  It  is, 
indeed,  too  clear,  not  only  from  the  expressions  but  from 
the  whole  tone  of  the  speech  of  the  noble  viscount,  that 
too  much  of  this  notion  is  lurking  in  his  mind  ;  that  he 
adopts,  in  part,  that  vain  conception  that  we,  forsooth, 
have  a  mission  to  be  the  censors  of  vice  and  folly,  of 
abuse  and  imperfection,  among  the  other  countries  of  the 
world ;  that  we  are  to  be  the  universal  schoolmasters ; 
and  that  all  those  who  hesitate  to  recognize  our  office 
can  be  governed  only  by  prejudice  or  personal  animosity, 
and  should  have  the  blind  war  of  diplomacy  forthwith 
declared  against  them.  And  certainly,  if  the  business  of 
a  foreign  secretary  properly  were  to  carry  on  diplomatic 
wars,  all  must  admit  that  the  noble  lord  is  a  master  in 
the  discharge  of  his  functions.  What,  sir,  ought  a  for- 
eign secretary  to  be  ?  Is  he  to  be  like  some  gallant 
knight  at  a  tournament  of  old,  pricking  forth  into  the  lists, 
armed  at  all  points,  confiding  in  his  sinews  and  his  skill, 
challenging  all  comers  for  the  sake  of  honor,  and  having 
no  other  duty  than  to  lay  as  many  as  possible  of  his  ad- 
versaries sprawling  in  the  dust  ?  If  such  is  the  idea  of  a 
good  foreign  secretary,  I,  for  one,  would  vote  to  the 
noble  lord  his  present  appointment  for  his  life.  But,  sir, 
I  do  not  understand  the  duty  of  a  secretary  for  foreign 
affairs  to  be  of  such  a  character.  I  understand  it  to  be 
his  duty  to  conciliate  peace  with  dignity.  I  think  it  to 
be  the  very  first  of  all  his  duties  studiously  to  observe, 
and  to  exalt  in  honor  among  mankind,  that  great  code  of 
principles  which  is  termed  the  law  of  nations,  which  the 
honorable  and  learned  member  for  Sheffield  has  found, 
indeed,  to  be  very  vague  in  their  nature,  and  greatly 


.IN  AND  OUT  OF  OFFICE.  55 

dependent  on  the  discretion  of  each  particular  country, 
but  in  which  I  find,  on  the  contrary,  a  great  and  noble 
monument  of  human  wisdom,  founded  on  the  combined 
dictates  of  reason  and  experience,  a  precious  inheritance 
bequeathed  to  us  by  the  generations  that  have  gone  be- 
fore us,  and  a  firm  foundation  on  which  we  must  take 
care  to  build  whatever  it  may  be  our  part  to  add  to  their 
acquisitions,  if,  indeed,  we  wish  to  maintain  and  to  con- 
solidate the  brotherhood  of  nations  and  to  promote  the 
peace  and  welfare  of  the  world." 

Mr.  Gladstone  went  on  to  contend  that  it  was 
the  insular  temper  of  Englishmen  and  their  self- 
glorifying  tendency  which  the  policy  of  the  noble 
lord,  and  the  doctrines  of  his  supporters,  tended 
so  much  to  strengthen,  and  which  had  given  to 
that  policy  the  quarrelsome  character  that  marked 
some  of  their  speeches.  Then  came  the  perora- 
tion of  his  speech  : 

"Sir,  I  say  the  policy  of  the  noble  lord  tends  to  en- 
courage and  confirm  in  us  that  which  is  our  besetting 
fault  and  weakness,  both  as  a  nation  and  as  individuals. 
Let  an  Englishman  travel  where  he  will  as  a  private  per- 
son, he  is  found  in  general  to  be  upright,  high-minded, 
brave,  liberal,  and  true;  but  with  all  this,  foreigners  are 
too  often  sensible  of  something  that  galls  them  in  his 
presence,  and  I  apprehend  it  is  because  he  has  too  great 
a  tendency  to  self-esteem — too  little  disposition  to  regard 
the  feelings,  the  habits,  and  the  ideas  of  others.  Sir,  I 
find  this  characteristic  too  plainly  legible  in  the  policy  of 
the  noble  lord.  I  doubt  not  that  use  will  be  made  of  our 
present  debate  to  work  upon  this  peculiar  weakness  of 


50  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

the  English  mind.  The  people  will  be  told  that  those 
who  oppose  the  motion  are  governed  by  personal  mo- 
tives, have  no  regard  for  public  principles,  no  enlarged 
ideas  of  national  policy.  You  will  take  your  case  before 
a  favorable  jury,  and  you  think  to  gain  your  verdict; 
but,  sir,  let  the  House  of  Commons  be  warned — let  it 
warn  itself — against  all  illusions.  There  is  in  this  case 
also  a  course  of  appeal.  There  is  an  appeal,  such  as  the 
honorable  and  learned  member  for  Sheffield  has  made, 
from  the  one  House  of  Parliament  to  the  other.  There 
is  a  further  appeal  from  this  House  of  Parliament  to  the 
people  of  England ;  but,  lastly,  there  is  also  an  appeal 
from  the  people  of  England  to  the  general  sentiment  of 
the  civilized  world ;  and  I,  for  iny  part,  am  of  opinion 
that  England  will  stand  shorn  of  a  chief  part  of  her  glory 
and  pride  if  she  shall  be  found  to  have  separated  herself, 
through  the  policy  she  pursues  abroad,  from  the  moral 
supports  which  the  general  and  fixed  convictions  of 
mankind  afford — if  the  day  shall  come  when  she  may 
continue  to  excite  the  wonder  and  the  fear  of  other 
nations,  but  in  which  she  shall  have  no  part  in  their 
affection  and  regard. 

"  No,  sir,  let  it  not  be  so ;  let  us  recognize,  and  recgo- 
nize  with  frankness,  the  equality  of  the  weak  with  the 
strong;  the  principles  of  brotherhood  among  nations,  and 
of  their  sacred  independence.  "When  we  are  asking  for  the 
maintenance  of  the  rights  which  belong  to  our  fellow  sub- 
jects resident  in  Greece,  let  us  do  as  we  would  be  done  by, 
and  let  us  pay  all  the  respect  to  a  feeble  state,  and  to  the 
infancy  of  free  institutions,  which  we  should  desire  and 
should  exact  from  others  toward  their  maturity  and  their 
strength.  Let  us  refrain  from  all  gratuitous  and  arbi- 
trary meddling  in  the  internal  concerns  of  other  states, 


IN  AND   OUT  OF  OFFICR  57 

even  as  we  should  resent  the  same  interference  if  it  were 
attempted  to  be  practiced  toward  ourselves.  If  the  noble 
lord  has  indeed  acted  on  these  principles,  let  the  Gov- 
ernment to  which  he  belongs  have  your  verdict  in  its 
favor ;  but,  if  he  has  departed  from  them,  as  I  contend, 
and  as  I  humbly  think  and  urge  upon  you  that  it  has 
been  too  amply  proved,  then  the  House  of  Commons  must 
not  shrink  from  the  performance  of  its  duty  under  what- 
ever expectations  of  momentary  obloquy  or  reproach, 
because  we  shall  have  done  what  is  right;  we  shall  enjoy 
the  peace  of  our  own  consciences,  and  receive,  whether 
a  little  sooner  or  a  little  later,  the  approval  of  the  public 
voice  for  having  entered  our  solemn  protest  against  a 
system  of  policy  which  we  believe,  nay,  which  we  know, 
whatever  may  be  its  first  aspect,  must,  of  necessity,  in 
its  final  results  be  unfavorable  even  to  the  security  of 
British  subjects  resident  abroad,  which  it  professes  so 
much  to  study — unfavorable  to  the  dignity  of  the  coun- 
try, which  the  motion  of  the  honorable  and  learned 
member  asserts  it  preserves — and  equally  unfavorable  to 
that  other' great  and  sacred  object,  which  also  it  suggests 
to  our  recollection,  the  maintenance  of  peace  with  the 
nations  of  the  world." 

Speaking  of  the  result  of  this  great  debate, 
Mr.  Justin  McCarthy  says  :  "  Nothing  could  be 
more  complete  than  Palmerston's  success.  '  Civis 
Romanus '  settled  the  matter.  Who  was  in  the 
House  of  Commons  so  rude  that  he  would  not  be 
a  Roman  ?  Who  was  there  so  lacking  in  patri- 
otic spirit  that  would  not  have  his  countrymen 
as  good  as  any  Roman  citizen  of  them  all.  It 
was  to  little  purpose  that  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  a 


58  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

speech  of  singular  argumentative  power,  pointed 
out  that  *  a  Roman  citizen  was  the  member  of  a 
privileged  caste,  of  a  victorious  and  conquering 
nation,  of  a  nation  that  held  all  others  bound 
down  by  the  strong  arm  of  power — which  had 
one  law  for  him  and  another  for  the  rest  of  the 
world,  which  asserted  in  his  favor  principles 
which  it  denied  to  all  others.'  It  was  in  vain  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  asked  whether  Lord  Palmerston 
thought  that  this  was  the  position  which  it  would 
become  a  civilized  and  Christian  nation  like  Eng- 
land to  claim  for  her  citizens.  The  glory  of  being 
a  '  Civis  Romanus '  was  far  too  strong  for  any 
mere  argument  drawn  from  fact  and  common 
sense  to  combat  against  it.  The  phrase  had  car- 
ried the  day.  ...  In  vain  was  the  calm,  grave, 
studiously  moderate  remonstrance  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  who,  while  generously  declaring  that  Pal- 
merston's  speech  *  made  us  all  proud  of  the  man 
who  delivered  it,'  yet  recorded  his  firm  protest 
against  the  style  of  policy  which  Palmerston's  elo- 
quence had  endeavored  to  glorify.  The  victory 
was  all  with  Palmerston.  He  had,  in  the  words 
of  Shakespeare's  Rosalind,  wrestled  well,  and 
overthrown  more  than  his  enemies." 


THE  PRISONS  OF  NAPLES.  59 

V. 

THE   PRISONS  OF  NAPLES. 

IN  the  winter  of  1850-'51  Mr.  Gladstone 
spent  several  months  in  Naples.  It  was  a  sort 
of  holiday  trip,  undertaken,  as  he  himself  ex- 
plained, for  "purely  domestic"  reasons;  but 
while  there  he  learned  that  a  large  number  of  the 
citizens  of  Naples,  who  had  formed  the  opposi- 
tion in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies,  had  been  exiled 
or  imprisoned  by  King  Ferdinand,  and  that  up- 
ward of  twenty  thousand  of  that  monarch's  sub- 
jects (as  reported)  had  been  thrown  into  prison 
on  a  charge  of  political  disaffection.  In  the  city 
of  Naples  alone,  he  discovered,  there  were  some 
hundreds  under  indictment,  capitally.  Out  of 
one  hundred  and  forty  deputies — this  being  the 
average  of  those  who  came  to  Naples  to  exer- 
cise the  functions  of  the  Legislative  Chamber — 
seventy-six  had  either  been  arrested  or  had  gone 
into  exile  ;  so  that  the  Government  of  Naples 
had  "consummated  its  audacity  by  putting  into 
prison,  or  driving  into  banishment  undergone  for 
the  sake  of  escaping  prison,  an  actual  majority 
of  the  representatives  of  the  people." 

"So  much,"  says  Mr.  Smith,  "for  the  num- 
bers of  those  incarcerated.  But  the  mode  of  pro- 
cedure also  was  arbitrary  in  the  extreme.  The 
law  of  Naples  required  that  personal  liberty 


60  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

should  be  inviolable,  except  under  a  warrant 
from  a  court  of  justice.  Yet,  in  utter  defiance  of 
this  law,  the  Government  watched  the  people, 
paid  domiciliary  visits,  ransacked  houses,  seized 
papers  and  effects,  and  tore  up  floors  at  pleasure 
under  pretense  of  searching  for  arms,  imprisoned 
men  by  the  score,  by  the  hundred,  by  the  thou- 
sand, without  any  warrant  whatever,  sometimes 
without  even  any  written  authority  at  all,  or  any- 
thing beyond  the  word  of  a  policeman,  constantly 
without  any  statement  whatever  of  the  nature  of 
the  offense.  Charges  were  fabricated  to  get  rid 
of  inconvenient  persons.  Perjury  and  forgery 
were  resorted  to  in  order  to  establish  charges, 
and  the  whole  mode  of  conducting  trials  was  a 
burlesque  of  justice.  Describing  the  dungeons, 
Mr.  Gladstone  says  :  '  The  prisons  of  Naples,  as 
is  well  known,  are  another  name  for  the  extreme 
of  filth  and  horror.  I  have  really  seen  something 
of  them,  but  not  the  worst.  This  I  have  seen, 
my  lord :  the  official  doctors  not  going  to  the 
sick  prisoners,  but  the  sick  prisoners,  men  almost 
with  death  on  their  faces,  toiling  up-stairs  to 
them  at  that  charnel-house  of  the  Vicaria,  be- 
cause the  lower  regions  of  such  a  palace  of  dark- 
ness are  too  foul  and  loathsome  to  allow  it  to  be 
expected  that  professional  men  should  consent  to 
earn  bread  by  entering  them.'  The,  diet  was 
abominable,  and  the  filth  of  the  prisons  unen- 
durable. After  narrating  the  hardships  of  one 


THE   PRISONS  OF  NAPLES.  61 

Pironte,  formerly  a  judge,  and  of  the  Baron  Por- 
cari,  Mr.  Gladstone  deals  with  the  case  of  the 
distinguished  patriot,  Carlo  Poerio.  He  was  a 
refined  and  accomplished  gentleman,  a  copious 
and  elegant  speaker,  a  respected  and  blameless 
character,  yet  he  had  been  arrested  and  con- 
demned for  treason.  After  a  pretty  full 
examination  of  his  case,  the  writer  said  :  *  The 
condemnation  of  such  a  man  for  treason  is  a  pro- 
ceeding just  as  conformable  to  the  laws  of  truth, 
justice,  decency,  and  fair  play,  and  to  the  common 
sense  of  the  community — in  fact,  just  as  great  and 
gross  an  outrage  on  them  all — as  would  be  a  like 
condemnation  in  this  country  of  any  of  our  best- 
known  public  men — Lord  John  Russell,  or  Lord 
Lansdowne,  or  Sir  James  Graham,  or  yourself. 
There  was  no  name  dearer  to  the  English  nation 
than  was  that  of  Poerio  to  his  Neapolitan  fellow 
countrymen.'  The  case  of  Settembrini  was  also 
a  mournful  and  remarkable  one.  The  capital 
sentence  passed  upon  him  was  not  executed,  but 
he  was  reserved  for  a  fate  much  harder — double 
irons  for  life  on  a  remote  sea-girt  rock,  and  it 
was  feared  that  he  was  directly  subjected  to  physi- 
cal torture.  The  mode  specified  was  that  of 
thrusting  sharp  instruments  under  the  finger 
nails.  Mr.  Gladstone  narrates  in  detail  the  in- 
iquitous proceedings  in  connection  with  Poerio, 
who  had  been  tried  and  condemned  on  the  sole 
accusation  of  a  worthless  character  named  Jervo- 


62  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

lino.  Yet  Poerio  would  have  been  acquitted  by  a 
division  of  four  to  four  of  his  judges,  had  not 
Navarro  (who  sat  as  a  judge  while  directly  con- 
cerned in  the  charge  against  the  prisoner),  by  the 
distinct  use  of  intimidation,  procured  the  number 
necessary  for  sentence.  A  statement  is  furnished, 
on  the  authority  of  an  eye-witness,  as  to  the  inhu- 
manity with  which  invalid  prisoners  were  treated 
by  the  Grand  Criminal  Court  at  Naples  ;  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  also  minutely  describes  the  manner  of 
the  imprisonment  of  Poerio  and  sixteen  of  his 
co-accused.  Each  prisoner  bore  a  weight  of  chain 
amounting  to  thirty-two  pounds,  and  for  no  pur- 
pose whatever  were  these  chains  undone.  All 
the  prisoners  were  confined  night  and  day  in  a 
small  room,  which  may  be  described  as  among 
the  closest  of  dungeons.  But  Poerio  was  con- 
demned after  this  to  even  a  still  lower  depth  of 
calamity.  'Never  before  have  I  conversed,'  says 
Mr.  Gladstone,  speaking  of  Poerio,  'and  never 
probably  shall  I  converse  again,  with  a  cultivated 
and  accomplished  gentleman,  of  whose  innocence, 
obedience  to  law,  and  love  of  his  country,  I  was 
as  firmly  and  as  rationally  assured  as  of  your 
lordship's  or  that  of  any  other  man  of  the  very 
highest  character,  while  he  stood  before  me 
amid  surrounding  felons,  and  clad  in  the  vile 
uniform  of  guilt  and  shame.  But  he  is  now  gone 
where  he  will  scarcely  have  the  opportunity  even 
of  such  conversation.  I  can  not  honestly  sup- 


THE  PRISONS  OF  NAPLES.  63 

press  my  conviction  that  the  object  in  the  case  of 
Poerio,  as  a  man  of  mental  power  sufficient  to  be 
feared,  is  to  obtain  the  scaffold's  aim  by  means 
more  cruel  than  the  scaffold,  and  without  the 
outcry  which  the  scaffold  would  create. ' " 

Mr.  Gladstone's  sympathies  were  warmly  en- 
listed on  behalf  of  the  oppressed  Neapolitans, 
and  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  attempt  the  redress  of 
evils  which  were  "  a  scandal  to  the  name  of  civili- 
zation in  Europe."  On  his  return  home,  there- 
fore, he  published  two  letters,  addressed  to  the 
Earl  of  Aberdeen,  denouncing  the  Neapolitan 
system  of  government,  and  reciting  the  facts 
given  in  the  preceding  paragraphs.  Three  reasons, 
he  explained,  had  led  him  to  adopt  this  course  : 
"First,  that  the  present  practices  of  the  Govern- 
ment of  Naples,  in  reference  to  real  or  supposed 
political  offenders,  are  an  outrage  upon  religion, 
upon  civilization,  upon  humanity,  and  upon 
decency.  Secondly,  that  these  practices  are 
certainly,  and  even  rapidly,  doing  the  work  of 
Republicanism  in  that  country — a  political  creed 
which  has  little  natural  or  habitual  root  in  the 
character  of  the  people.  Thirdly,  that,  as  a 
member  of  the  Conservative  party  in  one  of  the 
great  family  of  European  nations,  I  am  compelled 
to  remember  that  that  party  stands  in  virtual  and 
real,  though  perhaps  unconscious,  alliance  with 
all  the  established  governments  of  Europe  as 
such ;  and  that,  according  to  the  measure  of  its 


64  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

influence,  they  suffer  more  or  less  of  moral  detri- 
ment from  its  reverses,  and  derive  strength  and 
encouragement  from  its  successes." 

These  letters  excited  great  attention  through- 
out Europe,  and  became  the  theme  of  a  most 
virulent  and  violent  controversy,  which  raged  in 
France  and  Italy,  as  well  as  in  England.  The 
Neapolitan  Government  published  an  official  reply, 
and  the  entire  gang  of  subsidized  scribblers 
throughout  the  Continent  exhausted  their  venom 
upon  the  "  audacious  pamphleteer."  The  author, 
properly  enough,  regarded  all  this  as  proof  that 
"  the  arrow  has  shot  deep  into  the  mark";  and  in 
a  rejoinder  to  the  reply  of  the  Neapolitan  Govern- 
ment, issued  in  1852,  reiterated  his  charges,  and 
fortified  them  with  additional  and  confirmatory 
evidence.  Moreover,  any  doubt  as  to  the  im- 
pression he  had  made  upon  those  whom  he  desired 
to  impress  was  set  at  rest  by  a  speech  of  Lord 
Palmerston's,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  which 
his  lordship  took  occasion  to  say  :  "  Mr.  Glad- 
stone has  done  himself,  I  think,  very  great  honor 
by  the  course  he  pursued  at  Naples,  and  by  the 
course  he  has  followed  since  ;  for  I  think  that, 
when  you  see  an  English  gentleman,  who  goes  to 
pass  a  winter  at  Naples,  instead  of  confining 
himself  to  those  amusements  that  abound  in 
that  city,  instead  of  diving  into  volcanoes  and 
exploring  excavated  cities — when  we  see  him 
going  to  courts  of  justice,  visiting  prisons, 


THE   PRISONS  OF  NAPLES.  65 

descending  into  dungeons,  and  examining  great 
numbers  of  the  cases  of  unfortunate  victims  of 
illegality  and  injustice  with  a  view  afterward  to 
enlist  public  opinion  in  the  endeavor  to  remedy 
those  abuses — I  think  that  is  a  course  that  does 
honor  to  the  person  who  pursues  it ;  and,  con- 
curring in  feeling  with  him  that  the  influence  of 
public  opinion  in  Europe  might  have  some  useful 
effect  in  setting  such  matters  right,  I  thought  it 
my  duty  to  send  copies  of  his  pamphlet  to  our 
ministers  at  the  various  courts  of  Europe,  direct- 
ing them  to  give  to  each  Government  copies  of  the 
pamphlet,  in  the  hope  that,  by  affording  them  an 
opportunity  of  reading  it,  they  might  be  led  to 
use  their  influence  in  promoting  what  is  the  object 
of  my  honorable  and  gallant  friend — a  remedy  for 
the  evils  to  which  he  has  referred." 

This  announcement  by  the  Foreign -Secretary 
was  warmly  cheered  by  the  House  ;  and,  when,  a 
few  days  afterward,  he  was  requested  by  Prince 
Castelcicala,  the  Neapolitan  ambassador,  to  for- 
ward the  reply  of  the  Neapolitan  Government  to 
the  different  European  courts  to  which  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's pamphlet  nad  been  sent,  his  lordship 
promptly  replied  that  he  "must  decline  being 
accessory  to  the  circulation  of  a  pamphlet  which, 
in  my  opinion,  does  no  credit  to  its  writer,  or  the 
Government  which  he  defends,  or  to  the  political 
party  of  which  he  professes  to  be  the  champion." 
He  also  informed  the  Prince  that  information  re- 
5 


66  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

ceived  from  other  sources  led  him  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  Mr.  Gladstone  had  by  no  means  over- 
stated the  various  evils  which  he  had  described  ; 
and  that  he  (Lord  Palmerston)  regretted  that  the 
Neapolitan  Government  had  not  set  to  work 
earnestly  and  effectually  to  correct  the  manifold 
and  grave  abuses  which  clearly  existed. 

The  immediate  effect  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  de- 
nunciations was  not  commensurate,  it  must  be 
confessed,  with  the  excitement  they  aroused  ;  but 
"  they  bore  fruit  later,  when  Garibaldi  and  a  free 
people  marched  into  Naples,  and  King  Bomba, 
his  priests,  his  women,  and  his  court,  ran  out "  ; 
and  Garibaldi  himself  declared  long  afterward 
that  this  eloquent  protest  was  "the  first  trumpet- 
call  of  Italian  liberty." 


VI. 

CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER. 

Is"  the  month  of  June,  1850,  occurred  that 
lamentable  accident  by  which  Sir  Robert  Peel 
lost  his  life,  and  England  one  of  her  most  illus- 
trious statesmen.  This  untoward  event  was  fol- 
lowed by  the  disintegration  of  the  party  which 
had  borne  Peel's  name,  and  been  held  together 
by  his  strong  will  and  undisputed  ascendancy. 


CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER.  67 

"  Several  of  its  members  formally  joined  the  Con- 
servative ranks  ;  but  others,  such  as  Sir  James 
Graham,  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  Mr.  Sidney  Herbert, 
held  themselves  aloof  both  from  the  Whigs  and 
the  Tories.  They  did  not  feel  themselves  at 
liberty  at  once  to  throw  in  their  lot  with  the 
former,  for  Conservative  traditions  still  exercised 
considerable  influence  over  them,  and  they  could 
not  join  the  latter,  as  they  were  already  the  sub- 
jects of  strong  liberalizing  tendencies." 

By  slow  degrees,  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Gladstone, 
these  latter  tendencies  gained  the  ascendant,  and 
by  the  end  of  the  session  of  1852  his  alienation 
from  the  Conservative  party  was  complete,  though 
he  did  not  formally  join  the  Liberal  ranks  until 
some  years  afterward.  He  and  his  friends  Sidney 
Herbert  and  Sir  James  Graham  belonged  for  a 
time  to  neither  party  ;  and,  standing  aloof,  their 
ability  acknowledged  and  their  motives  above  sus- 
picion, they  probably  exercised  more  influence 
upon  the  House  of  Commons  than  either  group 
on  the  two  front  benches. 

"If  Mr.  Gladstone,"  says  Mr.  Lucy,  "had 
died  before  1853,  he  would  have  been  accounted 
a  brilliant  politician  cut  off  before  the  ripeness  of 
years  had  brought  him  fullness  of  opportunity. 
He  had  done  great  things,  but  their  character  was 
rather  critical  than  constructive.  He  had  spoken 
brilliantly,  but  had  not  achieved  anything  likely 
to  secure  him  permanent  fame.  In  1853,  how- 


68  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

ever,  the  square  peg  was  happily  thrust  into  the 
square  hole,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  became  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer.  His  remarkable  ability  for 
dealing  with  figures,  and  evolving  a  comprehen- 
sive scheme  out  of  a  multiplicity  of  details,  had 
been  shown  in  the  Tariffs  bill  already  alluded  to. 
In  1852  he  showed  in  stronger  light  his  mastery 
over  the  science  of  national  finance.  At  this 
epoch  Lord  Derby  was  Premier  and  Mr.  Disraeli 
was  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  The  latter  had 
introduced  his  first  budget  in  an  elaborate  speech, 
extending  over  five  hours  and  a  quarter,  and 
which,  unless  it  greatly  differed  from  all  his  ora- 
tions of  similar  proportions,  must  have  been  in- 
tolerably heavy.  To  one  listener,  however,  it 
possessed  a  keen  and  enthralling  interest.  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  not,  up  to  this  period,  entered 
upon  that  constant  attitude  of  personal  antago- 
nism with  Mr.  Disraeli  which  subsequent  events 
and  relative  positions  created.  He  had  answered 
and  been  answered  by  him  in  the  course  of  debate. 
But  the  House  and  the  country  had  not  as  yet 
come  to  look  with  keen  interest  for  what  might 
follow  upon  a  conflict  between  these  two  men, 
who  have  no  possession  in  common  except  genius. 
Circumstances,  however,  were  rapidly  tending 
toward  the  creation  of  the  condition  of  affairs  we 
are  now  familiar  with.  Mr.  Gladstone  could 
never  forgive  Mr.  Disraeli's  bitter  attacks  on  his 
old  friend  and  master,  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  had 


CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER.  69 

loudly  cheered  Sidney  Herbert  when,  in  a  moment 
of  passionate  indignation,  that  gentleman  had 
pointed  to  the  Treasury  bench,  where  now  pros- 
perously sat  the  detractor  of  the  great  Free- 
Trader,  and  asked  the  House  to  behold  in  him 
'a  spectacle  of  humiliation.'  AVhen  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli essayed  to  deal  with  finance,  Mr.  Gladstone 
with  fierce  delight  sprung  upon  him,  and  gripped 
him  so  sorely  that  he  made  an  end  of  him,  his 
budget,  and  the  Ministry  of  which  he  was  the 
prop.  Lord  Derby  resigned,  and  Lord  Aberdeen, 
being  called  upon  to  form  a  ministry,  invited  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  take  the  office  out  of  which  he  had 
driven  Mr.  Disraeli." 

This  first  encounter  between  the  two  great 
Parliamentary  rivals  of  a  generation  is  interesting 
enough  to  pause  over  for  a  moment.  "  The  de- 
bate," says  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  "  was  one  of 
the  finest  of  the  kind  ever  heard  in  Parliament 
during  our  time.  The  excitement  on  both  sides 
was  intense.  The  rivalry  was  hot  and  eager.  Mr. 
Disraeli  was  animated  by  all  the  power  of  desper- 
ation, and  was  evidently  in  a  mood  neither  to 
give  nor  to  take  quarter.  He  assailed  Sir  Charles 
Wood,  the  late  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  with 
a  vehemence  and  even  a  virulence  which  certainly 
added  much  to  the  piquancy  and  interest  of  the 
discussion  so  far  as  listeners  were  concerned,  but 
which  more  than  once  went  to  the  verge  of  the 
limits  of  Parliamentary  decorum.  It  was  in  the 


70  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

course  of  this  speech  that  Disraeli,  leaning  across 
the  table  and  directing  his  words  full  at  Sir 
Charles  Wood,  declared,  '  I  care  not  to  be  the  right 
honorable  gentleman's  critic,  but,  if  he  has  learned 
his  business,  he  has  yet  to  learn  that  petulance  is 
not  sarcasm,  and  that  insolence  is  not  invective.' 
The  House  had  not  heard  the  concluding  word  of 
Disraeli's  bitter  and  impassioned  speech,  when  at 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning  Mr.  Gladstone  leaped 
to  his  feet  to  answer  him.  Then  began  that  long 
Parliamentary  duel  which  only  knew  a  truce  when, 
at  the  close  of  the  session  of  1876,  Mr.  Disraeli 
crossed  the  threshold  of  the  House  of  Commons 
for  the  last  time,  thenceforward  to  take  his  place 
among  the  peers  as  Lord  Beaconsfield.  During 
all  the  intervening  four-and-twenty  years  these 
two  men  were  rivals  in  power  and  in  Parliamen- 
tary debate  as  much  as  Pitt  and  Fox  had  been. 
Their  opposition,  like  that  of  Pitt  and  Fox,  was 
one  of  temperament  and  character  as  well  as  of 
genius,  position,  and  political  opinion.  The  ri- 
valry of  this  first  heated  and  eventful  night  was  a 
splendid  display.  Those  who  had  thought  it  im- 
possible that  any  impression  could  be  made  upon 
the  House  after  the  speech  of  Mr.  Disraeli,  had 
to  acknowledge  that  a  yet  greater  impression  was 
produced  by  the  unprepared  reply  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone. The  House  divided  about  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  and  the  Government  were  left  in 
a  minority  of  nineteen.  Mr.  Disraeli  took  the 


CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER.     71 

defeat  with  his  characteristic  composure.  The 
morning  was  cold  and  wet.  '  It  will  be  an  un- 
pleasant day  for  going  to  Osborne,'  he  quietly 
remarked  to  a  friend  as  they  went  down  Westmin- 
ster Hall  together  and  looked  out  into  the  dreary 
streets.  That  day,  at  Osborne,  the  resignation 
of  the  Ministry  was  formally  placed  in  the  hands 
of  the  Queen." 

The  acceptance  by  Mr.  Gladstone  of  a  post  in 
the  Aberdeen  Ministry  marked  his  final  passage 
across  the  great  gulf  that  separates  Toryism  from 
Liberalism.  Lord  Aberdeen  was  not  what  in 
these  days  would  be  called  a  Liberal ;  but  neither 
was  he  a  Tory — in  fact,  he  was  successor  to  the 
overthrown  Tory  Ministry — and  from  this  time 
on  the  breach  between  Mr.  Gladstone  and  his  old 
political  associates  was  irrevocable. 

The  transition  being  now  complete,  this  seems 
the  proper  place  to  explain  how  so  great  a  change 
of  opinion  was  brought  about,  and  for  this  pur- 
pose we  quote  another  striking  passage  from  Mr. 
McCarthy  : 

"Mr.  Gladstone  grew  slowly  into  Liberal  con- 
victions. At  the  time  when  he  joined  the  Coalition 
Ministry  he  was  still  regarded  as  one  who  had 
scarcely  left  the  camp  of  Toryism,  and  who  had 
only  joined  that  Ministry  because  it  was  a  coali- 
tion. Years  after,  he  was  applied  to  by  the  late 
Lord  Derby  to. join  a  ministry  formed  by  him; 
and  it  was  not  supposed  that  there  was  anything 


72  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

unreasonable  in  the  proposition.  The  first  im- 
pulse toward  Liberal  principles  was  given  to  his 
mind,  probably,  by  his  change  with  his  leader 
from  protection  to  free  trade.  When  a  man 
like  Gladstone  saw  that  his  traditional  principles 
and  those  of  his  party  had  broken  down  in  any 
one  -direction,  it  was  but  natural  that  he  should 
begin  to  question  their  endurance  in  other  direc- 
tions. The  whole  fabric  of  belief  was  built  up 
together.  Gladstone's  was  a  mind  of  that  order 
that  sees  a  principle  in  everything,  and  must,  to 
adopt  the  phrase  of  a  great  preacher,  make  the 
plowing  as  much  a  part  of  religious  duty  as  the 
praying.  The  interests  of  religion  seemed  to  him 
bound  up  with  the  creed  of  Conservatism ;  the 
principles  of  protection  must,  probably,  at  one 
time  have  seemed  a  part  of  the  whole  creed,  of 
which  one  article  was  as  sacred  as  another.  His 
intellect  and  his  principles,  however,  found  them- 
selves compelled  to  follow  the  guidance  of  his 
leader  in  the  matter  of  free  trade ;  and,  when 
inquiry  thus  began,  it  was  not  very  likely  soon  to 
stop.  He  must  have  seen  how  much  the  working 
of  such  a  principle  as  that  of  protection  became  a 
class  interest  in  England,  and  how  impossible  it 
would  have  been  for  it  to  continue  long  in  exist- 
ence under  an  extended  and  popular  suffrage. "  In 
other  countries  the  fallacy  of  protection  did  not 
show  itself  so  glaringly 'in  the  eyes  of  the  poorer 
classes,  for  in  other  countries  it  was  not  the  staple 


CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER.     73 

food  of  the  population  that  became  the  principal 
object  of  a  protective  duty.  But  in  England 
the  bread  on  which  the  poorest  had  to  live  was 
made  to  pay  a  tax  for  the  benefit  of  landlords  and 
farmers.  As  long  as  one  believed  this  to  be  a 
necessary  condition  of  a  great  unquestionable 
creed,  it  was  easy  for  a  young  statesman  to  recon- 
cile himself  to  it.  It  might  bear  cruelly  on  indi- 
viduals, or  even  multitudes ;  but  so  would  the 
law  of  gravitation,  as  Mill  has  remarked,  bear 
harshly  on  the  best  of  men  when  it  dashed  him 
down  from  a  height  and  broke  his  bones.  It 
would  be  idle  to  question  the  existence  of  the  law 
on  that  account,  or  to  disbelieve  the  whole  teach- 
ing of  the  physical  science  which  explains  its 
movements.  But  when  Mr.  Gladstone  came  to 
be  convinced  that  there  was  no  such  law  as  the 
protection  principle  at  all ;  that  it  was  a  mere 
sham  ;  that  to  believe  in  it  was  to  be  guilty  of  an 
economic  heresy — then  it  was  impossible  for  him 
not  to  begin  questioning  the  genuineness  of  the 
whole  system  of  political  thought,  of  which  it 
formed  but  a  part.  Perhaps,  too,  he  was  impelled 
toward  Liberal  principles  at  home  by  seeing  what 
the  effects  of  opposite  doctrines  had  been  abroad. 
He  rendered  memorable  service  to  the  Liberal 
cause  of  Europe  by  his  eloquent  protest  against 
the  brutal  treatment  of  Baron  Poerio  and  other 
Liberals  of  Naples  who  were  imprisoned  by  the 
Neapolitan  king.  ...  In  rendering  service  to 


74  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Liberalism  and  to  Europe,  he  rendered  service 
also  to  his  own  intelligence.  He  helped  to  set 
free  his  own  spirit  as  well  as  the  Neapolitan  people. 
We  find  him,  as  his  career  goes  on,  dropping  the 
traditions  of  his  youth,  always  rising  higher  in 
Liberalism,  and  not  going  back." 

Addressing  himself  with  characteristic  energy 
to  the  work  of  his  new  position,  Mr.  Gladstone, 
shortly  after  he  became  Chancellor  of  the  Exche- 
quer, introduced  a  scheme  for  the  reduction  of 
the  National  Debt,  which  was  adopted  by  the 
House,  and  which,  together  with  other  financial 
reforms,  enabled  the  country  to  meet  with  ease 
the  strain  of  the  Crimean  War.  "On  the  18th 
of  April,  1853,"  says  Mr.  Lucy,  "  Mr.  Gladstone 
delivered  the  first  of  what  has  proved  to  be  a  long 
series  of  budget  speeches  unsurpassed  in  Parlia- 
mentary history.  There  are  some  members  in 
the  present  House  who  have  a  vivid  recollection 
of  this  occasion.  Expectation  stood  on  tiptoe. 
The  House  was  crowded  in  every  part,  and  it  re- 
mained crowded  and  tireless,  while  for  the  space 
of  five  hours  Mr.  Gladstone  poured  forth  a  flood 
of  oratory  which  made  arithmetic  astonishingly 
easy,  and  gave  an  unaccustomed  grace  to  statistics. 
Merely  as  an  oratorical  display,  the  speech  was  a 
rare  treat  to  the  crowded  assembly  that  heard  it, 
and  to  the  innumerable  company  which  some 
hours  later  read  it.  But  the  form  was  rendered 
doubly  enchanting  by  the  substance.  It  was  clear 


CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER.  75 

that  Mr.  Gladstone  could  not  only  adorn  the  ex- 
position of  finance  with  the  gifts  of  oratory,  but 
he  could  control  the  developments  of  finance  with 
a  master-hand.  His  scheme  was  a  bold  one,  and 
of  a  kind  altogether  different  from  a  succession 
recently  commended  to  public  notice.  The  young 
and  untried  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  found 
himself  with  a  surplus  of  something  over  three 
quarters  of  a  million.  This  was  not  much.  But 
it  was  enough  to  have  made  things  pleasant  in  one 
or  two  influential  quarters,  and  he  might  have 
hoped  for  a  fuller  purse  next  year.  To  have  taken 
this  course,  to  have  dribbled  away  the  surplus, 
and  practically  to  have  left  matters  where  they 
stood,  would  moreover  have  saved  him  an  infini- 
tude of  trouble,  and  relieved  him  from  a  tremen- 
dous risk.  Scorning  these  considerations,  and 
plunging  into  the  troubled  sea  with  the  confident 
daring  of  genius,  he  positively  increased  taxation, 
chiefly  by  manipulation  of  the  income  tax,  and 
was  thereby  enabled,  in  a  wholesale  manner  that 
seems  scarcely  less  than  magical,  to  reduce  or 
absolutely  abolish  the  duties  on  nearly  three  hun- 
dred articles  of  commerce  of  daily  use.  Of  course 
the  secret  of  the  financier's  magic  lay  in  that 
sound  principle  which  he  may  be  said  to  have 
inaugurated  in  British  finance,  and  under  the 
extended  application  of  which  trade  and  com- 
merce have  advanced  with  leaps  and  bounds.  He 
reckoned  upon  that  property  in  national  finance 


76  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

which  is  known  as  the  '  elasticity  of  revenue,' 
and  which  is  now  safely,  and  as  a  matter  of  cal- 
culation, counted  upon  presently  to  make  good 
deficiencies  immediately  accruing  upon  reduction 
of  taxation.  There  is  nothing  remarkable  in  the 
adoption  of  this  principle  now,  any  more  than 
there  is  in  the  application  of  a  lighted  match  to  a 
gas-burner  when  we  want  light  in  a  darkened 
room.  But  in  1853  the  experiment  was  as  novel 
and  its  results  as  surprising  as  would  have  been 
the  introduction  of  a  blazing  gas-chandelier  in 
the  House  of  Commons  when  William  Pitt  was 
explaining  his  budget  of  1783.  Perhaps  the  most 
remarkable  thing  in  connection  with  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's first  budget  was  the  confidence  with  which 
its  predictions  were  accepted.  Everywhere  it  was 
applauded,  and,  though  Mr.  Disraeli,  as  the  leader 
of  the  Opposition,  supported  an  amendment 
against  it,  this  was  a  matter  of  course.  Equally, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  the  budget  resolutions 
were  approved,  and  the  beneficial  reign  of  sound 
finance,  inspired  by  rare  genius  and  directed  by 
superlative  energy,  forthwith  commenced." 

Eeferring  to  this  first  budget,  Mr.  Justin 
McCarthy  says  that  the  speech  with  which  it  was 
introduced  "was  regarded  as  a  positive  curiosity 
of  financial  exposition.  It  was  a  performance 
that  belonged  to  the  department  of  the  fine  arts. 
The  speech  occupied  several  hours,  and  assur- 
edly no  listener  wished  it  shorter  by  a  single  sen- 


CHANCELLOR  OF  THE  EXCHEQUER.  77 

tencc.  Pitt,  wo  read,  had  the  same  art  of  mak- 
ing a  budget  speech  a  fascinating  discourse  ;  but 
in  our  time  no  minister  has  had  this  gift  except 
Mr.  Gladstone.  Each  time  that  he  essayed  the 
same  task  subsequently  he  accomplished  just  the 
same  success." 

So  great  was  their  attraction  that  these  annual 
budget  speeches  came  to  be  regarded  as  the  great 
events  of  the  successive  sessions,  and  regularly 
drew  crowds  such  as  are  rarely  brought  together 
in  the  House  of  Commons  save  by  the  most  mo- 
mentous debates ;  and  each  successive  budget 
strengthened  the  public  confidence  in  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's capacity  for  his  work.  "It  was  felt," 
says  Mr.  Molesworth  (in  his  "  History  of  Eng- 
land from  the  Year  1830  ")  "  by  all  classes  of  per- 
sons throughout  the  country  that  its  financial 
operations  were  now  directed  by  a  master-hand  ; 
that  the  work  which  Peel  had  so  ably  commenced 
was  being  carried  out  by  Gladstone,  not  in  a  spirit 
of  servile  imitation,  but  with  a  bold  originality 
of  conception,  and  a  happy  force  and  eloquence 
of  expression,  which  placed  him  fully  on  a  level 
witli  the  lamented  statesman  whose  work  he  was 
successfully  endeavoring  to  complete.  The  peo- 
ple, therefore,  submitted  cheerfully  to  the  burden 
of  a  heavy  and  oppressive  tax,  in  the  full  convic- 
tion that  the  continuance  of  it  was  necessary  in 
order  to  enable  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer 
to  place  the  national  finances  on  a  footing  which 


78  WILLIAM   EWAET   GLADSTONE. 

would  increase  the  wealth  and  well-being  of  all 
classes  of  the  people. " 


VII. 

THE   CRIMEAN   WAR. 

"NEVER,  perhaps,"  says  Mr.  Molesworth, 
"had  the  condition  and  prospects  of  the  nation 
been  more  satisfactory  than  they  were  during 
the  later  months  of  1853.  The  Parliamentary 
session  had  been  fruitful  of  important  measures. 
The  Ministry  appeared  to  command  general  con- 
fidence, and  to  be  likely  to  remain  in  office  for  a 
long  time  ;  the  finances  of  the  country,  under 
the  able  management  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  were  in 
a  condition  of  progressive  improvement ;  trade 
and  manufactures  were  flourishing  in  almost  all 
their  departments.  It  was  true  that  the  harvest 
was  not  all  that  could  be  desired ;  but  this  was 
to  a  great  extent  compensated  by  the  freeness 
with  which  corn  could  now  be  drawn  from  all 
parts  of  the  world  to  supply  the  deficiencies  of 
our  own  crops.  The  nation  seemed  to  be  enter- 
ing on  a  period  of  unbounded  prosperity  and  pro- 
gress ;  but  a  dark  cloud  was  slowly  rising  in  the 
East,  and  casting  its  ominous  shadows  on  the 
fair  prospect." 


THE   CRIMEAN   WAR.  79 

It  would  be  beyond  the  purpose  or  compass 
of  this  book  to  enter  into  a  detailed  account  of 
the  causes  and  progress  of  the  Crimean  War. 
The  complications  in  which  it  began  had  their 
source  in  a  miserable  squabble  between  Latin  and 
Greek  monks  about  what  they  called  the  Holy 
Places — that  is  to  say,  the  places  which  were 
traditionally  regarded  as  the  scenes  of  Christ's 
birth  and  sufferings  ;  but  the  chief  object  of  con- 
tention was  the  possession  of  the  key  of  the  great 
door  of  the  church  at  Bethlehem,  and  the  right 
to  place  a  silver  star  in  the  cave  or  grotto  in  which 
it  was  alleged  that  the  Saviour  of  the  world  was 
born,  and  which  was  covered  by  the  sacred  edifice. 

The  quarrel  differed  in  no  respect  from  dozens 
of  others  that  arise  from  time  to  time  in  the  same 
connection,  and  would  easily  have  been  settled  or 
compromised  ;  but,  unfortunately,  the  cause  of  the 
Greeks  was  adopted  by  the  Russian  Government, 
while  that  of  the  Latins  was  championed  by  the 
new  French  Government,  each  endeavoring  by  ne- 
gotiations with  the  Porte  to  secure  the  triumph  of 
the  party  whose  cause  it  espoused.  "  The  Rus- 
sian Government  in  all  probability  cared  little 
about  the  squabble,  and  the  French  Government 
nothing  at  all.  But  political  considerations  led 
both  parties  to  press  the  matter  with  an  earnest- 
ness out  of  all  proportion  to  their  real  opinion  of 
its  importance.  The  Russian  emperor  was  not 
disposed  to  yield  an  inch  to  the  new  French  Gov- 


80  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

eminent,  which  he*  had  reluctantly  and  ungra- 
ciously recognized  ;  and  the  French  emperor  durst 
not  allow  himself  to  be  humiliated  by  the  Czar. 
He  knew  that  in  upholding  the  claims  of  the 
Latins  he  was  maintaining  a  cause  that  was  very 
dear  to  the  majority  of  the  French  Catholics ; 
and  that  nothing  would  be  more  likely  to  bring 
support  to  his  government  from  the  people  of 
France,  and  especially  from  the  Liberal  party  of 
that  country,  now  estranged  from  and  hostile  to 
him,  than  a  firm  attitude  toward  Eussia.  There 
is,  however,  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  French 
emperor  was  anxious  for  war.  He  seems,  on  the 
contrary,  to  have  used  every  effort  to  bring  the 
contest  to  a  peaceful  and  honorable  termination  ; 
but,  having  once  entered  on  it,  he  could  not  draw 
back." 

The  Turks,  in  their  indifference,  would  cheer- 
fully have  given  twenty  keys,  if  by  this  means 
they  could  have  satisfied  the  contending  parties. 
But  neither  party  was  disposed  to  accept  a  compro- 
mise, and,  unfortunately,  as  the  dispute  went  on, 
the  question  of  the  Holy  Places  became  compli- 
cated with  another  and  still  more  dangerous  ques- 
tion— that  of  the  protectorate  over  the  Greek 
Christians  in  Turkey  which  the  Czar  claimed 
under  a  clause  of  the  Treaty  of  Kutchuk-Kain- 
ardji,  made  in  1774.  This  claim  enlisted  Tur- 
key in  the  quarrel  and  greatly  intensified  it ;  and 
at  last  (July  2,  1853)  the  Czar  Nicholas  cut 


THE   CRIMEAN   WAR.  81 

the  Gordian  knot  of  diplomacy  by  dispatching 
two  divisions  of  his  army  across  the  Pruth  to  take 
possession  of  the  Danubian  Principalities.  Even 
this  menacing  step  did  not  put  an  end  to  negotia- 
tions, but  all  expedients  failed,  and  before  the 
tend  of  the  year  Turkey  had  formally  declared  war 
against  Russia,  and  France  and  England  were 
vigorously  preparing  for  the  conflict. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  dispute  the  Czar 
appears  to  have  counted  upon  the  neutrality,  if 
not  the  active  sympathy,  of  England  ;  but  English- 
men have  always  been  sensitive  to  any  Russian 
advance  toward  the  Mediterranean  as  menacing 
the  connection  with  India,  and,  as  soon  as  the  con- 
troversy assumed  a  warlike  phase,  it  became  evi- 
dent that  France  and  England  would  fight  the 
battle  as  allies. 

Yet  England'sjiarticipation  in  the  war  was 
essentially  the  work  of  her  people  rather  than  of 
her  statesmen.  Lord  Aberdeen  was  strenuously 
opposed  to  war,  and  nearly  all  his  Cabinet  shared 
his  feeling.  This  was  especially  the  case  with 
Mr.  Gladstone,  who,  on  humanitarian  as  well  as 
on  national  grounds,  was  opposed  to  the  arbitra- 
ment of  arms.  The  Premier  had  gone  so  far  as 
to  resolve  not  to  remain  at  the  head  of  the  Gov- 
ernment unless  he  could  maintain  peace,  and  it 
was  understood  that  Mr.  Gladstone  also  would  re- 
fuse to  hold  a  position  in  a  war  ministry. 

Lord  Palmerston  was  the  only  member  of  the 
6 


82  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

Cabinet  who  was  eager  for  war,  and  he,  backed  up 
by  the*  warlike  enthusiasm  of  the  people,  and 
aided  by  the  blunders  of  the  Eussian  Govern- 
ment, carried  the  day.  The  occupation  of  the 
Principalities  had  aroused  a  strong  feeling  of  re- 
sentment throughout  Europe,  but  especially  in 
England;  the  so-called  "massacre  of  Sinope" 
stimulated  the  war  feeling  almost  to  the  pitch  of 
frenzy ;  and  on  the  28th  of  March,  1854,  Eng- 
land formally  declared  war  against  Russia. 

The  war  thus  initiated  entailed  on  England  an 
exceedingly  heavy  expenditure,  and  upon  Mr. 
Gladstone,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  fell 
the  task  of  providing  the  necessary  means.  In- 
stead of  that  remission  of  taxation  to  which  he  had 
looked  forward,  and  for  which  he  had  smoothed 
the  way,  he  was  called  upon  to  prepare  a  war 
budget.  Not  only  was  the  surplus  swallowed  up, 
but  he  was  compelled  to  increase  the  income  tax, 
the  spirit  duties,  and  the  malt  tax.  "  Faced  by 
no  ordinary  difficulties,"  says  Mr.  Smith,  "Mr. 
Gladstone's  fertility  in  resource  was  again  ap- 
parent at  this  juncture.  He  conceived  a  scheme 
by  which  the  country  should  not  be  permanently 
burdened  with  the  expenses  of  the  impending 
war.  Prince  Albert,  in  a  letter  to  Baron  Stock- 
mar,  referred  to  this  plan.  Mr.  Gladstone  desired 
to  pay  for  the  war  out  of  current  revenue,  pro- 
vided it  did  not  require  more  than  ten  millions 
sterling  beyond  the  ordinary  expenditure.  In 


THE   CRIMEAN    WAR.  83 

order  to  meet  this  extra  charge,  however,  he  had 
no  option  but  to  increase  the  taxes.  Mr.  Disraeli 
— in  duty  bound,  perhaps,  as  the  mouthpiece  of 
a  strong  Opposition  —  propounded  a  different 
scheme.  He  desired  to  borrow,  thus  increasing 
the  debt ;  he  was  opposed  to  the  imposition  of 
any  fresh  taxes.  '  The  former  course,'  said  the 
Prince  Consort  to  his  friend,  'is  manly,  states- 
manlike, and  honest ;  the  latter  is  convenient, 
cowardly,  and  perhaps  popular.'  But  in  a  re- 
markable manner  the  people  of  England  rose  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  situation.  They  approved 
the  plans  of  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
though  fraught  with  temporary  inconvenience. 
Mr.  Gladstone  had  not  misinterpreted  the  feeling 
of  the  country.  It  was  ready  to  bear  the  burden 
which  it  in  reality  called  down  upon  itself,  and  to 
meet,  as  they  occurred,  the  expenses  of  the  war. 
Never  was  patriotism  more  strongly  displayed  than 
at  this  period.  A  minister  may  frequently  ac- 
quire popularity  by  leaving  to  succeeding  genera- 
tions the  discharge  of  those  pecuniary  liabilities 
which  arise  in  connection  with  exceptional  events. 
But  Mr.  Gladstone  fought  against  this  policy. 
Though,  as  he  said,  'every  good  motive  and  every 
bad  motive,  combated  only  by  the  desire  of  the 
approval  of  honorable  men  and  by  conscientious 
rectitude — every  motive  of  ease,  of  comfort,  and 
of  certainty  spring  forward  in  his  mind  to  induce 
a  chancellor  of  the  exchequer  to  become  the 


84  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

first  man  to  recommend  a  loan ' — he  resisted  the 
temptation,  and  was  rewarded  by  the  support  of 
Parliament  and  the  country." 

Unfortunately,  as  the  war  went  on,  the  ex- 
penses became  so  enormous  that  it  was  impossible 
to  adhere  strictly  to  the  "  manly  and  statesman- 
like "  policy  of  bringing  the  income  up  to  the 
expenditure.  Loans  had  to  be  resorted  to  ;  but, 
throughout,  Mr.  Gladstone  acted  as  consistently 
as  possible  on  the  theory  that  those  who  make 
war  should  pay  for  it,  and  not  throw  the  burden 
upon  posterity.  And  it  was  largely  due  to  his 
skillful  finance  that  England  was  so  little  crippled 
by  an  enormously  costly  conflict,  which  disorgan- 
ized the  industry  of  more  than  half  of  Europe. 

In  other  respects,  however,  the  management 
of  affairs  was  far  from  satisfactory.  For  nearly 
forty  years  England  had  been  at  peace,  and  the 
sudden  and  violent  strain  of  an  unexpected  war 
showed  that  every  department  of  the  service  was 
either  disorganized  or  hampered  by  routine.  The 
army,  whenever  it  had  the  opportunity,  covered 
itself  with  glory  ;  but  the  news  sent  home  during 
the  winter  showed  that  there  were  foes  far  more 
formidable  than  the  Eussians — cold,  sickness,  and 
gross  incompetence.  The  intensity  of  the  cold 
was  so  great  that  no  one  might  dare  to  touch  any 
metal  substance  in  the  open  air  with  his  bare 
hand  under  penalty  of  leaving  the  skin  behind 
him ;  yet  the  soldiers  had  to  face  this  weather 


THE  CRIMEAN  WAR.  85 

without  tents,  without  blankets,  and  in  many 
cases  without  shoes.  The  hospitals  for  the  sick 
and  wounded  were  in  such  an  utterly  chaotic  con- 
dition that,  but  for  the  timely  arrival  of  Florence 
Nightingale  with  her  trained  staff  of  nurses,  this 
essential  branch  of  the  service  must  have  wholly 
collapsed.  "  In  some  instances  medical  stores  were 
left  to  decay  at  Varna,  or  were  found  lying  useless 
in  the  holds  of  vessels  in  Balaklava  Bay,  which 
were  needed  for  the  wounded  at  Scutari.  The 
medical  officers  were  able  and  zealous  men  ;  the 
stores  were  provided  and  paid  for,  so  far  as  our 
Government  was  concerned  ;  but  the  stores  were 
not  brought  to  the  medical  men.  These  had  their 
hands  all  but  idle,  their  eyes  and  souls  tortured 
by  the  sight  of  sufferings  which  they  were  unable 
to  relieve  for  want  of  the  commonest  appliances 
of  the  hospital.  The  most  extraordinary  instances 
of  blunder  and  confusion  were  constantly  coming 
to  light.  Great  consignments  of  boots  arrived, 
and  were  found  to  be  all  for  the  left  foot.  Mules 
for  the  conveyance  of  stores  were  contracted  for 
and  delivered,  but  delivered  so  that  they  came 
into  the  hands  of  the  Russians,  and  not  of  us. 
Shameful  frauds  were  perpetrated  in  the  instance 
of  some  of  the  contracts  for  preserved  meat. 
'  One  man's  preserved  meat,'  exclaimed  'Punch,' 
with  bitter  humor,  'is  another  man's  poison.'" 

All   these   things,  as  they  gradually  became 
known,  aroused  a  passion  of  indignation  among 


83  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

the  people  at  home  ;  and  this  indignation  was  not 
long  in  making  itself  felt  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Mr.  Roebuck,  in  January,  1855,  moved 
for  the  appointment  of  a  select  committee  "  to 
inquire  into  the  condition  of  our  army  before 
Sebastopol,  and  into  the  conduct  of  those  depart- 
ments of  the  Government  whose  duty  it  has  been 
to  minister  to  the  wants  of  the  army."  Lord 
Palmerston  and  Mr.  Gladstone  vigorously  opposed 
the  motion ;  but,  says  Mr.  Smith,  "  the  result 
of  the  division  was  one  of  the  greatest  surprises 
ever  experienced  in  Parliamentary  history.  The 
numbers  were  —  for  Mr.  Roebuck's  committee, 
305 ;  against,  148 — majority  against  Ministers, 
157.  The  scene  was  a  peculiar  and,  probably, 
an  unparalleled  one.  The  cheers  which  are 
usually  heard  from  one  side  or  other  of  the  House 
on  the  numbers  of  a  division  being  announced 
were  not  forthcoming.  The  members  were  for 
the  moment  spellbound  with  astonishment ;  then 
there  came  a  murmur  of  amazement,  and  finally 
a  burst  of  general  laughter. " 

On  the  1st  of  February  Lord  Aberdeen  handed 
in  his  resignation  ;  and  thus,  amid  the  laughter 
of  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  reproaches  of 
popular  indignation,  collapsed  the  famous  Coali- 
tion Ministry — sometimes  known  as  the  "Admin- 
istration of  all  the  Talents." 

Mr.  Gladstone  was  one  of  the  few  members 
of  the  Aberdeen  Cabinet  who  did  not  share  the 


THE   CRIMEAN  WAR.  87 

blame  for  the  mismanagement  of  which  it  had 
been  convicted ;  and,  when  on  the  resignation  of 
Lord  Aberdeen  Lord  Palmerston  was  directed  by 
the  Queen  to  form  a  ministry,  he  invited  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  resume  his  place  as  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer.  He  accepted,  but,  when  a  few  weeks 
later,  Mr.  Roebuck  gave  notice  of  the  appointment 
forthwith  of  his  select  committee  and  Lord  Pal- 
merston accepted  it,  Mr.  Gladstone  once  more 
retired  from  office  ;  and  from  this  time  until  the 
conclusion  of  the  Treaty  of  Paris  in  1856  was  one 
of  the  most  eloquent  and  persistent  advocates  of 
peace. 

That  which  makes  the  Crimean  War  especially 
interesting  in  connection  with  Mr.  Gladstone's 
personal  history  is  that  his  conduct  in  that  crisis 
has  been  made  the  basis  of  frequent  attacks  upon 
him  for  his  conduct  in  a  later  and  similar  crisis — 
the  Russo-Turkish  war  of  1877.  Why,  it  has  been 
asked,  should  a  statesman,  who  led  his  country 
into  one  war  in  behalf  of  Turkey  and  in  defense  of 
"  British  interests,  •*'  so  fiercely  assail  a  rival  states- 
man who  at  a  later  period  was  making  another 
gallant  stand  in  behalf  of  the  same  ally  and  in 
defense  of  the  same  "  British  interests  "  ? 

Such  a  question,  often  repeated,  renders  it  im- 
portant to  define  Mr.  Gladstone's  position.  In  the 
first  place,  as  has  been  seen,  it  can  not  be  truly 
said  that  Mr.  Gladstone  led  his  country  into  the 
Crimean  War.  On  the  contrary,  like  his  chief, 


88  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Lord  Aberdeen,  he  "drifted"  into  the  war  while 
vigorously  opposing  it,  and  doing  everything  in 
his  power  to  avert  it.  In  the  next  place,  Mr. 
Gladstone  maintains  that  the  two  cases  cited  as 
identical  are  in  fact  totally  different  from  each 
other.  The  doctrine  of  "British  interests" — 
meaning  the  maintenance  of  the  Porte,  with  all 
its  crimes,  in  its  "integrity  and  independence," 
as  the  proper  bulwark  of  British  sway  in  India — 
is  essentially  a  recent  invention,  and  was  not  the 
avowed  doctrine  of  the  British  Government  in  the 
proceedings  that  led  to  the  Crimean  War.  i"  Un- 
less," says  Mr.  Gladstone,  "the  Sovereign  and  her 
Consort,  with  their  matchless  opportunities  of 
knowledge,  were  absolutely  blindfolded,  the  policy 
which  led  us  into  that  Avar  was  that  of  repressing 
an  offense  against  the  public  law  of  Europe,  but 
only  by  the  united  authority  of  the  Powers  of 
Europe."  Again,  speaking  of  the  comparisons 
that  have  been  drawn  between  the  two  periods, 


"  There  was  in  each  case  an  offender  against  the  law 
and  peace  of  Europe ;  Turkey,  by  her  distinct  and  obsti- 
nate breach  of  covenant,  taking  on  the  later  occasion 
the  place  which  Russia  had  held  in  the  earlier  contro- 
versy. There  were  in  each  case  prolonged  attempts  to 
put  down  the  offense  by  means  of  European  concert.  In 
1853-'4  these'proceeded  without  a  check  until  the  eve  of 
the  war.  In  1875-'7  the  combination  was  sadly  inter- 
mittent ;  but,  in  the  singular  and  unprecedented  confer- 


TEE   CRIMEAN  WAR.  89 

ence  at  Constantinople,  it  was,  at  least  on  the  part  of 
the  assembled  representatives,  perfectly  unequivocal.  In 
18o4  the  refusal  of  Prussia  to  support  words  by  acts  com- 
pletely altered  the  situation ;  and  in  1876-'7  the  assurance 
conveyed  to  Turkey  from  England  that  only  moral  suasion 
was  intended,  had  the  same  effect.  The  difference  was 
that,  in  ISS-t-^,  two  great  Powers,  with  the  partial  sup- 
port of  a  third,  prosecuted  by  military  means  the  work 
they  had  undertaken  ;  in  1877  it  was  left  to  Russia  alone 
to  act  as  the  hand  and  sword  of  Europe,  with  the  natural 
consequence  of  weighting  the  scale  with  the  question 
what  compensation  she  might  claim,  or  would  claim,  for 
her  efforts  and  sacrifices." 

How  closely  similar  are  the  sentiments  recently 
expressed  by  Mr.  Gladstone  to  those  which  he  en- 
tertained at  the  earlier  period  is  shown  by  a  pas- 
sage in  a  speech  which  he  made  during  the  session 
of  1856  in  a  debate  on  the  terms  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  !  He  said  that  he  regarded  the  treaty  as  an 
honorable  one,  because  the  objects  of  the  war  had 
been  attained.  Referring  to  the  statement  that 
England  had  become  bound,  with  the  other 
Christian  Powers  of  Europe,  not  only  for  the 
maintenance  and  integrity  of  the  Turkish  empire 
against  foreign  aggression,  but  also  for  the  main- 
tenance of  Turkey  as  a  Mohammedan  state,  he 
said  : 

"  If  I  thought,  sir,  that  this  treaty  of  peace  was  an 
instrument  which  bound  this  country  and  our  posterity, 
as  well  as  our  allies,  to  the  maintenance  of  a  set  of  in- 


90  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

stitutions  in  Turkey  which  you  are  endeavoring  to  re- 
form if  you  can,  but  with  respect  to  which  endeavor 
few  can  he  sanguine,  I  should  not  be  content  to  fall  back 
upon  the  amendment  of  my  noble  friend  [Lord  C.  Hamil- 
ton], expressing  that  I  regarded  the  peace  with  satisfac- 
tion ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  I  should  look  out  for  the  most 
emphatic  word  in  which  to  express  my  sense  of  condem- 
nation of  a  peace  which  bound  us  to  maintain  the  law 
and  institutions  of  Turkey  as  a  Mohammedan  state." 


VIII. 

STUDIES  IN  HOMER. 

IT  is  in  the  highest  degree  characteristic  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  that  he  has  employed  such  scant 
intervals  of  leisure  as  he  could  secure,  amid  his 
arduous  and  exacting  labors  as  a  man  of  affairs, 
in  studies  which  other  men  would  probably  regard, 
not  as  recreation,  but  as  constituting  an  occupa- 
tion in  themselves.  The  study  of  Homer  is  com- 
monly considered  to  furnish  the  legitimate  sub- 
ject for  a  life-work.  "  There  is  no  other  author," 
as  Mr.  Gladstone  says,  "whose  case  is  analogous 
to  this,  or  of  whom  it  can  be  said  that  the  study 
of  him  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  literary  criticism, 
but  is  a  full  study  of  life  in  every  one  of  its  de- 
partments." 

For  a  man  engaged  as  Mr.  Gladstone  has  been 


STUDIES  IN  HOMER.  91 

in  the  most  arduous  and  exacting  public  labors, 
it  would  have  been  creditable  if  he  had  merely 
acquired  a  reader's  knowledge  of  so  extensive  a 
circle  of  studies  ;  but  from  his  earliest  youth  the 
poems  of  Homer  have  been  to  him  as  a  compan- 
ion, and  no  living  Englishman — few  living  scholars 
anywhere — have  made  more  valuable  contribu- 
tions than  he  to  the  literature  of  Homerology. 
Wherever  the  study  of  Homer  has  its  votaries 
and  enthusiasts,  the  views  of  Mr.  Gladstone  upon 
the  various  questions  involved  in  it  are  quoted 
and  respected ;  and  in  his  own  country  no  one 
has  done  so  much  as  he  to  rescue  the  Homeric 
poems  from  the  dull  routine  of  the  schools. 

During  many  years  previously  he  had  been  ac- 
cumulating and  sifting  the  materials  for  such  a 
.work  ;  but  on  his  release  from  the  cares  of  office 
in  1856  he  turned  to  the  subject  with  renewed 
ardor,  and  in  1858  appeared,  in  three  large  vol- 
umes, his  "  Studies  on  Homer  and  the  Homeric 
Age."  "The  purely  technical  parts  of  this 
work,"  says  Mr.  Smith,  "arc  very  elaborate  in 
detail,  but  these  are  not  the  portions  which  most 
closely  touch  the  general  reader,  who  is  unable 
to  enter  into  the  controversy  upon  the  text  of 
Homer,  the  catalogue,  and  the  hundred  other 
ramifications  of  the  subject  which  are  of  pro- 
found interest  to  the  student.  But  there  are  many 
passages  in  the  work  possessing  a  general  value 
for  the  breadth  of  their  speculation,  the  lessons 


92  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

and  conclusions  they  endeavor  to  enforce,  the  com- 
parisons instituted  between  ancient  and  modern 
genius,  and  for  the  admirable  spirit  and  eloquence 
with  which  they  are  written." 

In  the  beginning  of  his  work  Mr.  Gladstone 
takes  a  general  survey  of  the  Homeric  controversy, 
shows  the  place  of  Homer  in  classical  education, 
develops  the  historic  aims  of  Homer,  discusses 
the  probable  trustworthiness  of  »the  text,  and  at- 
tempts to  fix  the  place  and  authority  of  the  poet 
in  historical  inquiry.  He  is  a  strenuous  advocate 
of  the  unity  of  authorship  both  of  the  "  Iliad  "  and 
the  " Odyssey"  ;  and  thinks  that  Homer  was  not 
only  a  native  Greek,  but  that  he  lived  within  a 
generation  or  two  of  the  Trojan  War,  and  prob- 
ably sang  his  songs  to  the  children  and  grand- 
children of  the  heroes  who  participated  in  the 
great  conflict.  In  regard  to  the  text  of  the  poems, 
while  conceding  that  there  are  portions  which 
have  obviously  been  interpolated  or  altered,  he 
yet  bases  the  whole  structure  of  his  criticism  and 
theories  upon  the  substantial  general  correctness 
of  the  text. 

Concerning  the  highly  important  question  as 
to  the  place  and  authority  of  Homer  in  historical 
inquiry,  Mr.  Gladstone  says  :  "In  regard  to  the. 
religion,  history,  ethnology,  polity,  and  life  at 
large  of  the  Greeks  of  the  heroic  times,  the  au- 
thority of  the  Homeric  poems,  standing  far  above 
that  of  the  whole  mass  of  the  later  literary  tra- 


STUDIES  IN  HOMER.  93 

ditions  in  any  of  their  forms,  ought  never  to  be 
treated  as  homogeneous  with  them,  but  should 
usually,  in  the  first  instance,  be  handled  by  it- 
self, and  the  testimony  of  later  writers  should, 
in  general,  be  handled  in  subordination  to  it, 
and  should  be  tried  by  it,  as  by  a  touchstone, 
on  all  the  subjects  which  it  embraces.  Homer 
is  not  only  older  by  some  generations  than 
Hesiod,  and  by  many  centuries  than  ^schylus 
and  the  other  great  Greek  writers,  but  enjoys  a 
superiority  in  another  important  respect,  viz., 
that  no  age  since  his  own  has  produced  a  more 
acute,  accurate,  and  comprehensive  observer. 
Judging  from  internal  evidence,  he  alone  stood 
within  the  precincts  of  the  heroic  time,  and  was 
imbued  from  head  to  foot  with  its  spirit  and  its 
associations." 

After  dealing  with  these  preliminary  questions, 
the  author  proceeds  to  discuss  the  ethnology  of 
the  Greek  races  ;  the  mythology  of  the  Homeric 
age,  and  the  supernatural  system  or  theo-mythol- 
ogy  of  Homer  ;  the  origin  of  the  Olympian  re- 
ligion ;  the  morals  or  ethics  of  the  Homeric  age  ; 
woman  in  the  heroic  age  ;  and  the  office  of  the 
Homeric  poems  in  relation  to  that  of  the  early 
books  of  the  Bible.  Then  come  sections  upon  the 
Politics  of  the  Hom'eric  age ;  upon  Trojans  and 
Greeks  ;  upon  the  Geography  of  the  poems  ;  and 
upon  "Some  Points  of  the  Poetry  of  Homer." 
This  last  division  is  particularly  interesting,  for  in 


94  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

it  are  discussed  the  plot  of  the  "  Iliad  "  ;  the  sense 
of  beauty  in  Homer,  human,  animal,  and  inani- 
mate ;  Homer's  perception  and  use  of  number  ; 
Homer's  perception  and  use  of  color  ;  Homer  and 
some  of  his  successors  in  epic  poetry,  particularly 
Virgil  and  Tasso*,  some  principal  Homeric  char- 
acters in  Troy — Hector,  Helen,  and  Paris ;  and 
the  decadence  of  the  great  Homeric  characters 
in  the  later  tradition.  "The  section  in  which 
comparisons  are  instituted  between  Homer  and 
Milton,  Dante,  Virgil,  and  Tasso,  is  distinguished 
for  its  broad  and  profound  criticism,  though  some 
of  the  judgments  expressed  will  probably  be  found 
to  clash  with  those  formed  by  readers  who  have 
their  individual  favorites  among  the  epic  poets." 

Mr.  Smith  justly  characterizes  the  work,  in  its 
elaborate  detail,  as  "a  colossal  monument  of  the 
author's  patience  and  Homeric  knowledge."  "  Sel- 
dom is  it,"  he  continues,  "that  so  great  an  under- 
taking is  successfully  executed  by  one  engaged  in 
the*  business  and  turmoil  of  political  life.  But 
we  perceive  in  the  author's  enthusiasm  and  deep 
love  of  his  subject  the  incentives  which  alone 
rendered  such  a  work  possible  under  these  circum- 
stances. In  the  concluding  words  of  the  last 
volume  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  touches  upon  the 
pleasing  and  engrossing  nature  of  his  task.  He 
observes  that  to  pass  from  the  study  of  Homer  to 
the  ordinary  business  of  the  world  is  to  step  out 
of  a  palace  of  enchantments  into  the  cold  gray 


STUDIES   IX   HOMER  95 

light  of  a  polar  day.  '  But  the  spells,'  he  adds, 
'  in  which  this  sorcerer  deals  have  no  affinity  with 
that  drug  from  Egypt  which  drowns  the  spirit  in 
effeminate  indifference  :  rather  they  are  like  the 
</>dp/za«ov  e<70Abv,  the  remedial  specific,  which, 
freshening  the  understanding  by  contact  with  the 
truth  and  strength  of  nature,  should  both  im- 
prove its  vigilance  against  deceit  and  danger,  and 
increase  its  vigor  and  resolution  for  the  discharge 
of  duty.'" 

A  much  greater  critic,  Mr.  Edward  A.  Free- 
man, describes  "  these  noble  volumes  "  as  a  work 
which  would  be  a  worthy  fruit  of  a  life  spent  in 
learned  retirement,  and  adds  :  "  As  the  work  of 
one  of  our  first  orators  and  statesmen,  they  are 
altogether  wonderful.  Not,  indeed,  that  Mr. 
Gladstone's  two  characters  of  scholar  and  states- 
man have  done  aught  but  help  and  strengthen  one 
another.  His  long  experience  of  the  world  has 
taught  him  the  better  to  appreciate  Homer's  won- 
derful knowledge  of  human  nature  ;  the  practical 
aspect  of  his  poems,  the  deep  moral  and  political 
lessons  which  they  teach,  become  a  far  more  true 
and  living  thing  to  the  man  of  busy  life  than 
they  can  ever  be  to  the  mere  solitary  student. 
And,  perhaps,  his  familiarity  with  the  purest  and 
most  ennobling  source  of  inspiration  may  have  had 
some  effect  in  adorning  Mr.  Gladstone's  political 
oratory  with  more  than  one  of  its  noblest  feat- 
ures. .  .  .  What  strikes  one  more  than  anything 


90  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

else  throughout  Mr.  Gladstone's  volumes  is  the  in- 
tense earnestness,  the  loftiness  of  moral  purpose, 
which  breathes  in  every  page.  He  has  not  taken 
up  Homer  as  a  plaything,  nor  even  as  a  mere 
literary  enjoyment.  To  him  the  study  of  the 
prince  of  poets  is*  clearly  a  means  by  which  him- 
self and  other  men  may  be  made  wiser  and  better." 
He  points  out  that  the  work  is  not  without  de- 
fects, but  concedes  that,  in  spite  of  these,  the 
volumes  are  "  worthy  alike  of  their  author  and  of 
their  subject,  the  freshest  and  most  genial  tribute 
to  ancient  literature  which  has  been  paid  even  by 
an  age  rich  in  such  offerings."  In  them,  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  "  done  such  justice  to  Homer  and 
his  age  as  Homer  has  never  received  out  of  his 
own  land.  He  has  vindicated  the  true  position 
of  the  greatest  of  poets  ;  he  has  cleared  his  tale 
and  its  actors  'from  the  misrepresentations  of 
ages." 

This  elaborate  work  upon  Homer  Mr.  Glad- 
stone has  followed  up  with  kindred  writings  at 
various  periods.  In  1869  appeared  "Juventus 
Mundi  ;  Gods  and  Men  of  the  Heroic  Age  in 
Greece,"  in  which  the  author  states  that  he  has 
endeavored  to  embody  the  greater  part  of  the 
results  which  he  had  reached  in  the  previous 
"  Studies."  This  latter  work  is  of  a  more  popu- 
lar character  than  its  predecessor,  and  also  con- 
tains some  modifications  of  views  at  which  the 
author  had  arrived  during  the  intervening  period 


STUDIES  IN  HOMER.  97 

of  ten  years.  A  still  further  popularization  of 
his  studies  is  to  be  found  in  the  excellent  and  in- 
teresting "Primer  of  Homer,"  which  he  con- 
tributed, in  1879,  to  Mr.  J.  R.  Green's  series  of 
"Literature  Primers." 

In  1876  appeared  "  Homeric  Synchronism  : 
An  Inquiry  into  the  Time  and  Place  of  Homer," 
a  work  written  in  the  belief  that  "  the  time  had 
at  length  come  for  serious  effort  to  connect  the 
poems  of  Homer,  by  means  of  the  internal  evi- 
dence which  they  supply,  with  events  and  person- 
ages which  are  now  known  from  other  sources  to 
belong  to  periods,  already  approximately  defined, 
of  the  primeval  history  of  the  human  race " — 
namely,  with  portions  of  the  series  of  Egyptian 
dynasties.  These  are  Mr.  Gladstone's  principal 
contributions  to  Homerology  ;  but,  besides  these, 
he  has  written  various  articles  for  the  magazines 
and  reviews,  and  has  touched  upon  the  subject  in 
several  public  addresses. 

"  We  now  part  from  these  Homeric  studies, 
into  which  Mr.  Gladstone  has  thrown  so  much 
perception,  learning,  and  research.  The  Siege  of 
Troy  and  the  Wanderings  of  Ulysses  possess  an 
undying  charm,  whether  their  chief  incidents  be 
wholly  fictitious,  partially  fictitious,  or  veritable 
history  ;  and  no  nobler  study  could  well  engage 
the  leisure  of  a  man  of  culture.  It  is  worthy  of 
note,  in  conclusion,  that,  after  all  his  just  and 
lofty  encomiums  upon  the  Homeric  records,  Mr. 
7 


98  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Gladstone  deduces  from  them  the  great  abiding 
lesson,  that  they  do  but  *  show  us  the  total  inability 
of  our  race,  even  when  at  its  maximum  of  power, 
to  solve  for  ourselves  the  problem  of  our  destiny  ; 
to  extract  for  ourselves  the  sting  from  care,  from 
sorrow,  and,  above  all,  from  death  ;  or  even  to 
retain  without  waste  the  knowledge  of  God,  where 
we  have  become  separate  from  the  source  which 
imparts  it.'" 


IX. 

IN  A  LIBERAL  MINISTRY. 

ONE  incident  of  the  period  during  which 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  absent  from  the  Government 
benches  is  worthy  of  mention.  In  1858  he  ac- 
cepted from  the  Earl  of  Derby  the  appointment 
of  Lord  High  Commissioner  Extraordinary  to  the 
Ionian  Islands,  and  in  that  capacity  went  out  to 
Corfu.  The  Ionian  Islands  were  under  the  pro- 
tection of  England,  and,  difficulties  having  arisen, 
owing  to  the  desire  of  the  inhabitants  to  sever  the 
connection  with  England  and  unite  themselves 
with  the  kingdom  of  Greece,  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
dispatched  on  a  commission  of  inquiry.  He  does 
not  appear  to  have  accomplished  much  beyond 
reporting  to  the  Government  at  home  that  "the 
single  and  unanimous  will  of  the  Ionian  people 


IN  A  LIBERAL   MINISTRY.  99 

has  been  and  is  for  their  union  with  the  kingdom 
of  Greece";  and  in  February,  1859,  he  returned 
home,  having  been  succeeded  by  a  regularly  ap- 
pointed lord  high  commissioner.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  the  hope  of  the  Islanders  was 
postponed  until  1864,  when  they  were  formally 
handed  over  to  Greece. 

After  his  retirement  from  Lord  Palmerston's 
Ministry,  Mr.  Gladstone  occupied  the  position  of  an 
independent  member  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
sometimes  opposing  and  sometimes  supporting 
the  measures  both  of  Lord  Palmerston  and  of  the 
Administration  of  the  Earl  of  Derby,  which  suc- 
ceeded to  power  in  1858.  Early  in  the  year  1859 
an  unexpected  revolution  of  the  political  wheel 
brought  him  again  into  office.  "The  desire  for 
Parliamentary  Reform,"  says  Mr.  Molesworth, 
"  had  never  ceased  to  exist ;  but  the  agitation  of 
the  question  had  been  to  a  great  extent  suspended 
during  the  years  that  had  passed  between  the  col- 
lapse of  Chartism  in  1848  and  the  period  we  have 
now  reached.  The  attention  of  the  legislature 
and  the  country  had  been  engrossed  by  the  Great 
Exhibition,  by  the  Crimean,  Chinese,  Persian,  and 
Indian  wars,  and  by  other  events  of  less  impor- 
tance. The  consequence  was  that  the  considera- 
tion of  this  question  had,  with  general  consent, 
been  postponed  to  a  more  convenient  season. 
Now,  however,  the  state  of  parties  favored  the 
revival  of  its  agitation ;  and  toward  the  close  of 


100  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

1858  several  large  and  important  meetings  were 
held  for  the  purpose  of  manifesting  the  feeling. 
...  It  is  true  that  the  feeling  exhibited  in  favor 
of  it  was  far  inferior  in  intensity  to  that  which 
had  prevailed  in  1831  and  1832.  For  this  there 
were  many  reasons.  The  abuses  of  our  represent- 
ative system  were  not  nearly  so  glaring  as  those 
which  existed  before  the  passage  of  the  first  Re- 
form bill ;  the  influence  of  public  opinion  was 
much  more  powerful  than  it  had  been ;  class 
legislation  was  on  the  wane  ;  the  number  of  those 
who  constituted  the  electoral  body  was  proportion- 
ately much  larger,  the  number  of  those  excluded 
from  it  was  proportionately  much  smaller ;  the 
condition  of  the  country  was  very  different,  for, 
instead  of  the  suffering  that  prevailed  in  1831, 
and  affected  almost  every  class  and  description  of 
persons,  there  was  in  1858  general  prosperity  and 
contentment.  All  these  circumstances  tended  to 
abate  the  eagerness  with  which  a  reform  of  our 
electoral  system  was  demanded. .  Nevertheless,  a 
strong  feeling  in  favor  of  such  a  reform  existed  at 
this  time,  and  its  existence  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  not  only  Lord  John  Russell  and  Lord  Pal- 
merston  were  prepared  to  deal  with  the  question, 
but  that  even  Lord  Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli,  know- 
ing as  they  did  the  perils  they  would  have  to  en- 
counter not  only  from  their  political  opponents, 
but  also,  and  perhaps  even  more  formidably,  from 
the  more  extreme  section  of  their  political  sup- 


IN  A  LIBERAL  MINISTRY.  101 

porters,  felt  that  the  only  course  open  to  them 
was  that  of  boldly  braving  these  dangers,  and 
staking  the  existence  of  their  government  on  the 
success  of  a  measure  for  the  reform  of  Parlia- 
ment. Their  intention  to  do  this,  though  not 
known,  was  suspected  ;  and  it  was  generally  be- 
lieved at  the  end  of  this  year  that  a  measure  of 
Parliamentary  Reform  would  be  announced  in  the 
Queen's  speech,  and  introduced  at  an  early  period 
of  the  approaching  session.  Both  parties  were 
therefore  looking  forward,  not,  indeed,  with 
strongly  excited  feelings  such  as  the  question  had 
formerly  raised,  but  still  with  a  certain  anxious 
and  feverish  curiosity,  for  the  introduction  of  the 
bill  which  the  Cabinet  of  Lord  Derby  was  under- 
stood to  be  engaged  in  framing,  and  to  the  strug- 
gle for  which  it  would  be  sure  to  be  the  signal  in 
the  next  Parliamentary  session." 

The  expected  measure  was  introduced  early  in 
the  session  of  1859,  and  at  once  aroused  a  storm 
of  opposition.  Two  of  the  more  conservative 
members  of  the  Cabinet  seceded  rather  than  sup- 
port it,  yet  it  was  by  no  means  thorough -going 
enough  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  reformers. 
Mr.  Gladstone  gave  the  measure  a  modified  sup- 
port, on  the  ground  that  it  was  at  least  a  step  in 
advance,  but  after  a  long  discussion  the  Govern- 
ment was  defeated  by  a  substantial  majority  in  an 
exceedingly  full  House.  Thereupon  Lord  Derby 
dissolved  Parliament  and  appealed  to  the  country, 


102  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

but,  the  verdict  of  the  constituencies  being  ad- 
verse, he  handed  in  his  resignation,  and  Lord  Pal- 
merston  was  invited  to  form  a  ministry.  In  this 
Ministry,  which  lasted  as  long  as  the  Premier's 
life,  Mr.  Gladstone  again  filled  the  office  of  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer. 

"  During  the  long  reign  of  Lord  Palmers  ton," 
says  Mr.  Lucy,  "the  progress  of  politics  attuned 
itself  to  the  beat  of  the  pulse  of  the  aged  Premier. 
There  were  wars  abroad,  but  peace  and  prosperity 
at  home,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  was  able  to  carry  out 
the  scheme  of  bold  but  far-seeing  finance  which 
the  Crimean  War  had  interrupted  five  years  ear- 
lier. The  year  1860  was  the  year  which  saw  the 
completion  of  the  commercial  treaty  with  France  ; 
a  fruitful  tree,  which  Mr.  Cobden  and  Napoleon 
III  planted,  and  which  Mr.  Gladstone  watered. 
This  same  year  was  the  last  of  the  paper  duty, 
the  abolition  of  which  was  a  final  stroke  in  that 
labor  for  the  freedom  of  the  press  and  the  exten- 
sion of  intelligence,  begun  when,  in  his  first  bud- 
get, he  had  made  an  end  of  the  stamp  duty." 

The  budget  of  1860  is  usually  regarded  as  Mr. 
Gladstone's  greatest  achievement  in  finance,  and 
the  speech  in  which  he  explained  it,  occupying 
four  hours  in  the  delivery,  aroused  as  much  in- 
terest as  any  that  had  preceded  it.  One  who 
heard  it  says:  "It  was  admirably  arranged  for 
the  purpose  of  awaking  and  keeping  attention, 
piquing  and  teasing  curiosity,  and  sustaining  de- 


IX  A  LIBERAL  MINISTRY.  103 

eire  to  hear  from  the  first  sentence  to  the  last. 
It  was  not  a  speech  ;  it  was  an  oration  in  the  form 
of  a  great  state  paper  made  eloquent,  in  which 
there  was  a  proper  restraint  over  the  crowding 
ideas,  the  most  exact  accuracy  in  the  sentences, 
and  even  in  the  very  words  chosen  ;  the  most  per- 
fect balancing  of  parts,  and,  more  than  all,  there 
were  no  errors  of  omission  ;  nothing  was  put 
wrongly  and  nothing  was  overlooked."  With  a 
House  crowded  in  every  corner,  with  the  strain 
upon  his  own  mental  faculties,  and  the  great 
physical  tax  implied  in  the  management^  the 
voice  and  the  necessity  for  remaining  upon  his 
feet  during  this  long  period,  "  the  observed  of  all 
observers,"  Mr.  Gladstone  took  all  as  quietly,  we 
are  told,  as  if  he  had  just  risen  to  address  a  few 
observations  to  Mr.  Speaker.  Indeed,  it  was 
laughingly  said  that  he  could  address  a  House 
for  a  whole  week,  and  on  Friday  evening  take  a 
new  departure,  beginning  with  the  observation, 
"After  these  preliminary  remarks,  I  will  now 
proceed  to  deal  with  the  subject  matter  of  my 
financial  plan." 

In  the  course  of  the  session  of  1860  Lord  John 
Russell  introduced  a  new  Reform  bill,  which  was 
vigorously  advocated  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  but,  after 
being  read  a  second  time  without  a  division,  Lord 
John  withdrew  it,  because  he  saw  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  carry  it  through  both  Houses  during 
the  session. 


104  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Turning  aside  for  a  moment  from  the  arena  of 
politics,  we  may  contemplate  Mr.  Gladstone  in  a 
different  capacity,  and  one  in  which  he  has  made 
several  appearances  during  his  lengthened  career. 
On  the  l&th  of  April,  1860,  he  Avas  installed  as 
Lord  Eector  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  re- 
ceiving previous  to  the  installation  the  degree  of 
LL.D.  In  the  address  which  he  delivered  on  this 
occasion — a  most  valuable  and  eloquent  one — he 
eulogized  the  work  of  the  University  as  a  great 
organ  of  preparation  for  after-life,  described  the 
part  which  it  had  played  in  the  history  of  civili- 
zation, discussed  the  question  as  to  the  proper 
work  of  universities,  and  urged  upon  the  students 
the  study  of  ancient  literature  as  affording  the 
most  effective  intellectual  training. 

A  few  months  after  the  delivery  of  this  ad- 
dress our  own  Civil  War  broke  out,  and  Mr. 
Gladstone's  attitude  in  regard  to  this  constitutes 
what  is  in  the  eyes  of  Americans  the  most  vulner- 
able incident  of  his  career  as  a  statesman.  Toward 
the  close  of  1862  he  delivered  a  speech  at  New- 
castle, in  which  he  expressed  his  conviction  that 
Jefferson  Davis  had  already  succeeded  in  making 
the  Southern  States  of  America,  which  were  in 
revolt,  an  independent  nation.  Only  a  few  weeks 
before  Mr.  Gladstone  thus  expressed  himself, 
Earl  Russell  had  written  as  follows  to  Mr.  Mason, 
in  reply  to  his  claim  to  have  the  Confederate 
States  recognized  as  a  separate  and  independent 


IX  A   LIBERAL  MINISTRY.  ]Q5 

power  :  "  In  order  to  be  entitled  to  a  place  among 
the  independent  nations  of  the  earth,  a  State 
ought  not  only  to  have  strength  and  resources 
for  a  time,  but  afford  promise  of  stability  and 
permanence.  Should  the  Confederate  States  of 
America  win  that  place  among  nations,  it  might 
be  right  for  other  nations  justly  to  acknowledge 
an  independence  achieved  by  victory,  and  main- 
tained by  a  successful  resistance  to  all  attempts 
to  overthrow  it.  That  time,  however,  has  not, 
in  the  judgment  of  her  Majesty's  Government, 
arrived.  Her  Majesty's  Government,  therefore, 
can  only  hope  that  a  peaceful  termination  of  the 
present  bloody  and  destructive  contest  may  not 
be  far  distant."  This  was  undoubtedly  the 
sentiment  entertained  by  the  great  majority  of 
reflecting  Englishmen  ;  and  such  an  opinion  as 
Mr.  Gladstone's,  coming  from  the  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  caused  a  great  sensation,  and 
pained  many  of  his  warmest  political  supporters, 
who  were  strongly  on  the  side  of  the  North  in  a 
struggle  which  they  regarded  as  virtually  turning 
upon  the  slavery  question.  Looking  at  the 
matter  quite  apart  from  all  feeling  for  or  against 
the  North  or  the  South,  and  remembering  Mr. 
Gladstone's  position  in  a  government  the  policy 
of  which  was  one  of  neutrality,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  his  utterance  was  highly  indiscreet. 
Subsequently,  being  interrogated  on  the  subject 
on  behalf  of  the  cotton  shippers,  he  said  that  his 


106  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

words  were  no  more  than  the  expression,  in  rather 
more  pointed  terms,  of  an  opinion  which  he  had 
long  ago  stated  in  public,  that  the  effort  of  the 
Northern  States  to  subdue  the  Southern  ones  was 
hopeless,  by  reason  of  the  resistance  of  the  latter. 
But,  if  the  judgment  thus  expressed  was  pre- 
mature and  mistaken,  Mr.  Gladstone  has  since 
made  such  atonement  as  was  possible  by  the 
frankest  possible  apology  and  retraction.  Writ- 
ing in  August,  1867,  to  a  New  York  correspondent, 
Mr.  C.  Edwards  Lester,  he  said  :  "I  must  confess 
that  I  was  wrong ;  that  I  took  too  much  upon 
myself  in  expressing  such  an  opinion.  Yet  the 
motive  was  not  bad.  My  sympathies  were  then 
— where  they  had  long  before  been,  where  they 
are  now — with  the  whole  American  people.  I, 
probably,  like  many  Europeans,  did  not  under- 
stand the  nature  and  working  of  the  American 
Union.  I  had  imbibed  conscientiously,  if  er- 
roneously, an  opinion  that  twenty  or  twenty-four 
millions  of  the  North  would  be  happier  and  would 
be  stronger  (of  course,  assuming  that  they  would 
hold  together)  without  the  South  than  with  it, 
and  also  that  the  negroes  would  be  much  nearer 
to  emancipation  under  a  Southern  Government 
than  under  the  old  system  of  the  Union,  which 
had  not  at  that  date  (August,  1862)  been  aban- 
doned, and  which  always  appeared  to  me  to  place 
the  whole  power  of  the  North  at  the  command  of 
the  slaveholding  interests  of  the  South.  As  far 


IN   A   LIBERAL  MINISTRY.  107 

as  regards  the  special  or  separate  interest  of  Eng- 
land in  the  matter,  I,  differing  from  many  others, 
had  always  contended  that  it  was  best  for  our 
interest  that  the  Union  should  be  kept  entire." 

Moreover,  as  Mr.  T.  "W.  Higginson  has  truly 
observed,  Mr.  Gladstone's  error  was  the  error  of 
educated  England  in  general ;  and  from  the  mo- 
ment it  was  retracted  America  has  had  in  the 
English  Government  no  manlier  friend.  Through 
all  the  subsequent  controversy  over  the  Alabama 
claims,  he  was  uniformly  just  and  even  friendly 
toward  the  United  States,  and  this  in  the  face  of 
the  bitterest  opposition  from  the  other  party. 

During  the  session  of  1863  Mr.  Gladstone 
spoke  in  favor  of  a  measure  which  has  only  be- 
come law  within  the  past  few  months,  and  which 
was  interesting  then  chiefly  as  showing  the  advance 
which  he  was  making  in  religious  toleration.  Sir 
Morton  Peto  introduced  a  Dissenters'  Burials  bill, 
the  object  of  which  was  to  enable  Nonconform- 
ists to  have  their  funerals  celebrated  with  their 
own  religious  rites  and  services,  and  by  their  own 
ministers,  in  the  graveyards  of  the  Established 
Church.  The  bill  was  strongly  opposed  on  its 
second  reading  by  Lord  Robert  Cecil  (now  the 
Marquis  of  Salisbury),  Mr.  Disraeli,  and  Mr. 
Gathorne  Hardy.  Mr.  Gladstone  said  that  he 
could  not  refuse  his  assent  to  the  measure,  though 
some  portions  of  it  were  open  to  objection.  "  But," 
he  continued,  "  I  do  not  see  that  there  is  sufficient 


108  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

reason,  or  indeed  any  reason  at  all,  why,  after  hav- 
ing granted,  and  most  properly  granted,  to  the 
entire  community  the  power  of  professing  and 
practicing  what  form  of  religion  they  please  dur- 
ing life,  you  should  say  to  themselves  or  their 
relatives  when  dead  :  '  We  will  at  the  last  lay  our 
hands  upon  you,  and  not  permit  you  to  enjoy  the 
privilege  of  being  buried  in  the  churchyard, 
where,  perhaps,  the  ashes  of  your  ancestors  re- 
pose, or,  at  any  rate,  in  the  place  of  which  you 
are  parishioners,  unless  you  appear  there  as  mem- 
bers of  the  Church  of  England,  and  as  members 
of  that  Church  have  her  service  read  over  your 
remains.'  That  appears  to  me  an  inconsistency 
and  an  anomaly  in  the  present  state  of  the  law, 
and  is  in  the  nature  of  a  grievance."  The  bill 
was  rejected  by  221  to  96. 

Another  speech,  which  exhibited  still  more 
strikingly  Mr.  Gladstone's  increasing  liberality  of 
sentiment,  was  delivered  during  the  session  of  18C5 
in  connection  with  the  Irish  Church.  Mr.  Dill- 
wyn  having  proposed  a  motion,  "  That  the  present 
position  of  the  Irish  Church  Establishment  is  un- 
satisfactory, and  calls  for  the  early  attention  of 
her  Majesty's  Government,"  Mr.  Gladstone  rose 
and  said  that,  although  the  Government  were  un- 
able to  agree  to  the  resolution,  they  were  not  pre- 
pared to  deny  the  abstract  truth  of  the  former 
part  of  it.  They  could  not  assert  that  the  pres- 
ent position  of  the  Establishment  was  satisfactory. 


IX   A   LIBERAL  MINISTRY.  109 

At  the  close  of  a  lengthy  speech,  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  said  that  he  could  come  to  no 
other  conclusion  than  that  the  Irish  Church,  as 
she  then  stood,  was  in  a  false  position.  It  was 
much  more  difficult,  however,  to  decide  upon  the 
practical  aspect  of  the  question,  and  no  one  had 
ventured  to  propose  the  remedy  required  for  the 
existing  state  of  things.  This  question  raised  a 
whole  nest  of  political  problems  ;  for,  while  the 
vast  majority  of  the  Irish  people  were  opposed  to 
the  maintenance  of  large  and  liberal  endowments 
for  a  fragment  of  the  population,  they  repudiated 
any  desire  to  appropriate  these  endowments,  and 
firmly  rejected  all  idea  of  receiving  a  state  pro- 
vision for  themselves.  How  could  the  Govern- 
ment, in  view  of  these  facts,  substitute  a  satisfac- 
tory for  an  admittedly  unsatisfactory  state  of 
things  ?  They  were  unable  to  do  so.  Conse- 
quently, "we  feel  that  we  ought  to  decline  to 
follow  the  honorable  gentleman  into  the  lobby,  and 
declare  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Government  to 
give  their  early  attention  to  the  subject ;  because, 
if  we  gave  a  vote  to  that  effect,  we  should  be  com- 
mitting one  of  the  gravest  offenses  of  which  a 
Government  could  be  guilty — namely,  giving  a 
deliberate  and  solemn  promise  to  the  country, 
which  promise  it  would  be  out  of  our  power  to 
fulfill."  The  debate  was  adjourned,  but  was  not 
resumed  during  the  session. 

This  question,  however,  was  rapidly  pressing 


110  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

forward  for  settlement — how  rapidly  Mr.  Gladstone 
himself  seemed  not  to  be  aware  of  at  the  time. 
Yet  the  act  of  Disestablishment  was  to  proceed 
from  his  own  hand  within  a  very  brief  period. 

The  gradual  but  steady  growth  in  ecclesiastical 
and  political  liberty  revealed  by  these  and  other 
speeches  was  creating  a  breach  between  Mr.  Glad- 
stone and  his  constituents,  which  showed  itself  in 
1865,  when  Parliament  was  dissolved  preparatory 
to  a  general  election.  Offering  himself  for  reelec- 
tion at  Oxford,  he  was  rejected,  after  a  spirited 
contest,  in  favor  of  Mr.  Gathorne  Hardy,  now 
Lord  Cranbrook,  a  bigoted  and  uncompromising 
Conservative,  who  was  not  likely  to  forfeit  the 
confidence  of  his  supporters  by  any  eccentricities 
of  genius. 

This  event  caused  a  profound  sensation,  and 
the  "  Times  "  expressed  the  general  sentiment  of 
the  educated  public  in  saying  :  "  The  enemies  of 
the  University  will  make  the  most  of  her  disgrace. 
It  has  hitherto  been  supposed  that  a  learned  con- 
stituency was  to  some  extent  exempt  from  the 
vulgar  motives  of  party  spirit,  and  capable  of 
forming  a  higher  estimate  of  statesmanship  than 
common  tradesmen  or  tenant-farmers.  It  will 
now  stand  on  record  that  they  have  deliberately 
sacrificed  a  representative  who  combined  the  very 
highest  qualifications,  moral  and  intellectual,  for 
an  academical  seat,  to  party  spirit,  and  party 
spirit  alone.  Mr.  Gladstone's  brilliant  public 


IN   A   LIBERAL   MINISTRY.  HI 

career,  his  great  academical  distinctions  and  liter- 
ary attainments,  his  very  subtlety  and  sympathy 
with  ideas  for  their  own  sake,  mark  him  out  be- 
yond all  living  men  for  such  a  position.  However 
progressive  in  purely  secular  politics,  he  has  ever 
shown  himself  a  staunch  and  devoted  Churchman 
wherever  Church  doctrine  or  ecclesiastical  rights 
were  concerned.  .  .  .  Henceforth,  Mr.  Gladstone 
will  belong  to  the  country,  but  no  longer  to  the 
University.  Those  Oxford  influences  and  tradi- 
tions which  have  so  deeply  colored  his  views,  and 
so  greatly  interfered  with  his  better  judgment, 
must  gradually  lose  their  hold  on  him."  A  yet 
more  emphatic  condemnation  came  from  the 
"Daily  News,"  the  organ  of  advanced  Liberal 
opinion  :  "Mr.  Gladstone's  career  as  a  statesman 
will  certainly  not  be  arrested,  nor  Mr.  Gathorne 
Hardy's  capacity  be  enlarged  by  the  number  of 
votes  which  Tory  squires  or  Tory  parsons  may  in- 
flict upon  Lord  Derby's  cheerful  and  fluent  sub- 
altern, or  withhold  from  Lord  Palmerston's  bril- 
liant colleague.  The  late  Sir  Robert  Peel  was 
but  the  chief  of  a  party  until,  admonished  by  one 
ostracism,  he  became  finally  emancipated  by  ano- 
ther. Then,  as  now,  the  statesman  who  was 
destined  to  give  up  to  mankind  what  was  never 
meant  for  the  barren  service  of  a  party,  could  say 
to  the  honest  bigots  who  rejected  him — 

4 1  banish  yon : 
There  is  a  world  elsewhere.' 


112  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Mediocrity  will  not  be  turned  into  genius,  honest 
and  good-natured  insignificance  into  force,  fluency 
into  eloquence,  if  the  resident  and  non-resident 
Toryism  of  the  University  of  Oxford  should  pre- 
fer the  safe  and  sound  Mr.  Hardy  to  the  illustrious 
Minister  whom  all  Europe  envies  us,  whose  name 
is  a  household  word  in  every  political  assembly  in 
the  world." 

England,  in  one  geographical  section  or  another 
of  it,  has  always  taken  care  that  it  shall  not  be  de- 
prived of  the  advantage  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  presence 
in  its  Parliament.  "  On  this  occasion,"  says  Mr. 
Lucy,  "it  was  South  Lancashire  which,  perceiv- 
ing his  peril  at  Oxford,  voluntarily  offered  to 
secure  him  a  seat.  From  the  University  he  hast- 
ened to  the  manufacturing  town,  and  stood  before 
the  men  of  Manchester,  as  he  said,  '  unmuzzled.' 
Even  the  dullest  politicians  recognized  the  signif- 
icance of  the  events  so  aptly  described  in  this 
memorable  phrase.  As  long  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  politically  associated  with  Oxford,  the  Alma 
Mater  which  he  loved  with  changeless  affection, 
there  was  a  possibility  that  he  might  successfully 
resist  the  silent  forces  that  were  leading  him  to  a 
more  uncompromising  Liberalism.  When  Oxford 
snapped  the  chain,  he  was  free  to  go  whither  he 
listed.  The  end  would,  doubtless,  have  arrived 
sooner  or  later,  and  he  would  have  retired  from 
Oxford  because  he  was  bent  upon  freeing  the  Irish 
Church,  just  as  in  an  earlier  stage  of  his  career  he 


THE  REFORM   BILLS  OF   1866-'67.  113 

had  retired  from  Newark  because  he  was  about  to 
join  in  an  assault  on  Protection.  Sooner  or  later 
the  unmuzzling  must  have  been  accomplished. 
Oxford  elected  to  make  it  sooner  by  several  years." 


THE   REFORM   BILLS  OF   1866-67. 

THE  character  of  Lord  Palmerston  was  a  sort 
of  pledge  that  the  question  of  Parliamentary  Re- 
form would  remain  "  hung  up  "  during  his  tenure 
of  office  ;  and,  in  fact,  only  once  during  his  ad- 
ministration was  any  step  attempted  to  be  taken 
in  that  direction.  At  length,  in  the  autumn  of 
1865,  Lord  Palmerston  died,  and  "the  pent-up 
flood  of  Liberal  life  rushed  down  like  a  cataract." 
Earl  Russell,  the  Nestor  of  Reform,  succeeded  to 
the  vacant  Premiership,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  of 
course  retaining  his  ministerial  position  as  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  became  Leader  of  the 
House  of  Commons. 

Of  the  way  in  which  Mr.  Gladstone  fulfilled 
the  duties  of  his  new  position,  Mr.  Molesworth 
gives  us  a  glimpse :  "  Amidst  all  the  manifold 
questions  which  engaged  the  attention  of  Parlia- 
ment during  this  session,  Mr.  Gladstone's  quality 
as  leader  of  the  House  was  fully  tried.  Like  Lord 

R 


114  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Palmerston,  he  generally  remained  in  the  House 
from  the  commencement  of  the  sittings  to  the 
close  of  them,  however  late  the  hour  of  adjourn- 
ment* might  be.  But  he  did  not,  like  him, 
slumber  during  the  greater  part  of  the  sittings  ; 
on  the  contrary,  he  listened  attentively  to  every 
speaker,  answered  fully  every  question  put  to  him, 
spoke  on  every  subject,  and  exhibited  a  sensitive 
and  conscientious  anxiety  to  discharge  his  func- 
tions as  leader  of  the  House,  which  his  friends 
feared  would  soon  disable  him  from  the  perform- 
ance of  the  responsible  duties  which  belonged  to 
him,  and  with  his  fall  precipitate  that  of  the 
Government,  of  which  he  was  the  mainstay." 

At  the  opening  of  the  session  of  1866  the 
Queen's  speech  intimated  that  the  question  of 
Parliamentary  Eeform  would  receive  immediate 
attention,  and  in  redemption  of  this  promise  a 
new  Franchise  bill  was  introduced  on  March  13th. 
Discussing  the  circumstances  of  this  event,  Mr. 
Molesworth  says  :  "If  the  Ministry  had  looked 
merely  to  its  own  stability,  or  to  its  chances  of 
retention  of  office,  it  would  not  have  introduced 
a  Eeform  bill  during  the  first  session  of  a  newly 
elected  Parliament,  the  members  of  which  were 
still  smarting  under  the  recollection  of  the  con- 
tests in  which  they  had  been  engaged,  the  dangers 
they  had  run,  the  expenses  they  had  already  in- 
curred, and  the  demands  on  their  purses  they  had 
still  to  meet,  and  who  might,  therefore,  be  ex- 


THE   REFORM   BILLS  OF   1866-'6Y.  115 

pected  to  regard  with  little  favor  a  measure  the 
effect  of  which  would  be  speedily  to  send  them 
back  to  their  constituents,  and  compel  them  again 
to  run  the  risks  and  incur  the  expenses  that  were 
so  fresh  in  their  remembrance.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  that  this  was  the  chief  cause  of  the  dis- 
favor with  which  the  proposition  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  regarded  by  many  of  those  who  num- 
bered themselves  among  the  supporters  of  the 
Administration,  and  that,  if  Earl  Kussell  and  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  waited  another  session  or  two  be- 
fore introducing  their  bill,  it  would  have  met  with 
a  much  more  favorable  reception,  and  probably 
have  been  carried  through  without  much  change 
or  difficulty.  Nor  were  there  wanting  among 
their  colleagues  men  who,  having  been  introduced 
into  the  Cabinet  by  Lord  Palmerston,  and  sharing 
his  feelings  with  regard  to  the  question  of  Reform, 
acknowledged,  with  regret,  that  it  was  a  question 
the  settlement  of  which  could  not  be  much 
longer  delayed,  but  wished  that  it  should  not  be 
prematurely  pressed.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  under  ordinary  circumstances  Lord  Russell 
and  Mr.  Gladstone  would  have  yielded  to  consid- 
erations based  on  such  strong  reasons  of  expedi- 
ency. But  they  felt,  and  justly  felt,  that  the 
question  had  already  been  hung  up  too  long  ;  that 
the  delay  which  had  occurred  with  regard  to  it 
was  damaging  to  our  institutions  and  to  the  char- 
acter of  our  public  men ;  and,  .therefore,  that  it 


116  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

was  not  the  time  to  listen  to  mere  considerations 
of  prudence  or  expediency,  but  to  show  the 
country  that  there  were  public  men  who  valued 
consistency  more  than  place,  and  were  determined, 
come  of  it  what  might,  to  redeem  their  pledges 
in  reference  to  this  great  and  long  -  delayed 
question." 

Upon  Mr.  Gladstone,  as  leader  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  fell  the  task  of  introducing  the  bill, 
and  bearing  the  brunt  of  the  battle  which  raged 
around  it.  The  bill  was  in  reality  a  very  moder- 
ate one,  and  bore  unmistakably  upon  its  face  the 
proof  that  it  was  the  result  of  a  compromise 
within  the  Cabinet ;  but  by  the  more  fanatical 
Conservatives  it  was  regarded  as  a  dangerous  step 
in  the  direction  of  democracy.  Mr.  Disraeli  led 
the  united  Conservative  party  in  an  attack  upon 
it  of  unprecedented  fierceness  and  obstinacy  ;  but 
the  most  effective  opposition  to  the  measure  came 
from  within  the  ranks  of  the  Liberal  party  itself. 
Mr.  Lowe,  fresh  from  the  insufficient  glories  of  a 
colonial  legislature,  assailed  Mr.  Gladstone  in  a  se- 
ries of  speeches  which  established  his  reputation 
and  raised  him  to  the  first  rank  of  Parliamentary 
debaters.  Another  prominent  Liberal  who  proved 
recreant  was  Mr.  Horsman,  who  described  Mr. 
Gladstone's  opening  speech  as  "another  bid  for 
power,  another  promise  made  to  be  broken,  anoth- 
er political  fraud  and  Parliamentary  juggle. "  This 
diatribe  drew  from  Mr.  Bright  a  crushing  and  mem- 


THE   REFORM  BILLS  OF   1866-'67.  117 

orable  retort.  Mr.  Horsman,  he  said,  had  "re- 
tired into  what  may  be  called  his  political  Cave  of 
Adullara,  to  which  he  invited  every  one  who  was 
in  distress,  and  every  one  who  was  discontented. 
He  has  long  been  anxious  to  found  a  party  in  this 
House  ;  and  there  is  scarcely  a  member  at  this 
end  of  the  House  who  is  able  to  address  us  with 
effect,  or  to  take  much  part,  .whom  he  has  not 
tried  to  bring  over  to  his  party  and  his  cabal.  At 
last  he  has  succeeded  in  hooking  the  right  honor- 
able gentleman  the  member  for  Calne,  Mr.  Lowe. 
I  know  it  was  the  opinion  many  years  ago  of  a 
member  of  the  Cabinet  that  two  men  could  make 
a  party.  When  a  party  is  formed  of  two  men  so 
amiable  and  so  disinterested  as  the  two  right  hon- 
orable gentlemen,  we  may  hope  to  see  for  the  first 
time  in  Parliament  a  party  perfectly  harmonious 
and  distinguished  by  mutual  and  unbroken  trust. 
But  there  is  one  difficulty  which  it  is  impossible 
to  remove.  This  party  of  two  is  like  the  Scotch 
terrier  that  was  so  covered  with  hair  that  you 
could  not  tell  which  was  the  head  and  which  was 
the  tail."  This  sally,  which  excited  immoderate 
laughter  at  the  time,  remains  one  of  the  happiest 
examples  of  Parliamentary  retort  and  badinage. 

Mr.  Disraeli,  in  a  speech  of  great  bitterness, 
reproached  Mr.  Gladstone  for  his  changes  of 
opinion,  and  accused  him  of  "  Americanizing  our 
institutions."  But  the  most  striking  of  all  the 
incidents  of  this  celebrated  debate  was  the  closing 


118  WILLIAM  BWART   GLADSTONE. 

speech  of  Mr.  Gladstone — a  speech  which  is  con- 
ceded to  have  been  one  of  the  most  eloquent  that 
has  been  heard  in  Parliament  since  the  great  days 
of  Pitt  and  Fox.  Rising  at  one  o'clock  in  the 
morning  to  conclude  a  legislative  battle  which 
had  begun  a  fortnight  before,  he  proceeded  to  re- 
but the  charges  which  had  been  made  against  the 
bill.  "  At  last,"  he  said,  alluding  to  a  statement 
by  Mr.  Disraeli,  "  we  have  obtained  a  declaration 
from  an  authoritative  source  that  a  bill  which,  in 
a  country  with  five  millions  of  adult  males,  pro- 
poses to  add  to  a  limited  constituency  200,000  of 
the  middle  class  and  200,000  of  the  working 
class,  is,  in  the  judgment  of  the  leader  of  the 
Tory  party,  a  bill  to  reconstruct  the  Constitu- 
tion upon  American  principles."  Another  point 
upon  which  Mr.  Disraeli  had  assailed  him  was 
dealt  with  in  the  following  famous  and  impressive 
passage  : 

"  The  right  honorable  gentleman,  secure  in  the  rec- 
ollection of  his  own  consistency,  has  taunted  me  with 
the  errors  of  my  boyhood.  When  he  addressed  the 
honorable  member  for  Westminster,  he  showed  his  mag- 
nanimity by  declaring  that  he  would  not  take  the  phi- 
losopher to  task  for  what  he  wrote  twenty-five  years  ago ; 
but  when  he  caught  one  who,  thirty-six  years  ago  just 
emerged  from  boyhood,  and  still  an  undergraduate  at  Ox- 
ford, had  expressed  an  opinion  adverse  to  the  Reform 
bill  of  1832,  of  which  he  had  so  long  and  bitterly  re- 
pented, then  the  right  honorable  gentleman  could  not 


THE  REFORM  BILLS  OF   ISee-'CT.  119 

resist  the  temptation.  He,  a  Parliamentary  leader  of 
twenty  years'  standing,  is  so  ignorant  of  the  House  of 
Commons  that  he  positively  thought  he  got  a  Parlia- 
mentary advantage  by  exhibiting  me  as  an  opponent  of 
the  Reform  bill  of  1832.  As  the  right  honorable  gentle- 
man has  exhibited  me,  let  me  exhibit  myself.  It  is  true, 
I  deeply  regret  it,  but  I  was  bred  under  the  shadow  of 
the  great  name  of  Canning ;  every  influence  connected 
with  that  name  governed  the  politics  of  my  childhood  and 
of  my  youth ;  with  Canning  I  rejoiced  in  the  removal  of 
religious  disabilities,  and  in  the  character  which  he  gave 
to  our  policy  abroad ;  with  Canning  I  rejoiced  in  the 
opening  which  he  made  toward  the  establishment  of  free 
commercial  interchanges  between  nations ;  with  Canning, 
and  under  the  shadow  of  that  great  name,  and  under 
the  shadow  of  the  yet  more  venerable  name  of  Burke,  I 
grant  my  youthful  mind  and  imagination  were  impressed 
just  the  same  as  the  mature  mind  of  the  right  honorable 
gentleman  is  now  impressed.  I  had  conceived  that  fear 
and  alarm  of  the  first  Reform  bill  in  the  days  of  my 
undergraduate  career  at  Oxford  which  the  right  honor- 
able gentleman  now  feels ;  and  the  only  difference  be- 
tween us  is  this — I  thank  him  for  bringing  it  out — that, 
having  those  views,  I  moved  the  Oxford  Union  Debating 
Society  to  express  them  clearly,  plainly,  forcibly,  in  down- 
right English,  and  that  the  right  honorable  gentleman  is 
still  obliged  to  skulk  under  the  cover  of  the  amendment 
of  the  noble  lord.  I  envy  him  not  one  particle  of  the 
polemical  advantage  which  he  has  gained  by  his  discreet 
reference  to  the  proceedings  of  the  Oxford  Union  Debat- 
ing Society  in  the  year  of  grace  1831.  My  position,  sir, 
in  regard  to  the  Liberal  party  is  in  all  points  the  oppo- 
site of  Earl  Russell's.  ...  I  have  none  of  the  claims  he 


120  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

possesses.  I  came  among  you  an  outcast  from  those 
with  whom  I  associated,  driven  from  them,  I  admit,  by 
no  arbitrary  act,  but  by  the  slow  and  resistless  forces  of 
conviction.  I  came  among  you,  to  make  use  of  the  legal 
phraseology,  in  forma  pauperis.  I  had  nothing  to  offer 
you  but  faithful  and  honorable  service.  You  received 
me  as  Dido  received  the  shipwrecked  ^Eneas — 

'  Ejectum  littore,  egentem 
Accepi,' 

and  I  only  trust  you  may  not  hereafter  at  any  time 
have  to  complete  the  sentence  in  regard  to  me — 

'  Et  regni  demens,  in  parte  locavi.' 

You  received  me  with  kindness,  indulgence,  generosity, 
and  I  may  even  say  with  some  measure  of  confidence. 
And  the  relation  between  us  has  assumed  such  a  form 
that  you  can  never  be  my  debtors,  but  that  I  must  for 
ever  be  in  your  debt.  It  is  not  from  me,  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, that  any  word  will  proceed  that  can  savor 
of  the  character  which  the  right  honorable  gentleman 
imputes  to  the  conduct  of  the  Government  with  respect 
to  the  present  bill." 

An  old  and  highly  esteemed  member  of  the 
Liberal  party  (Mr.  Philips,  member  for  Bury)  has 
told  us  that  the  delivery  of  this  passage  brought 
tears  into  his  eyes ;  and  he  added,  "  I  was  not 
ashamed  to  own  it,  when  I  observed  that  several 
friends  near  me  were  similarly  moved." 

But  the  finest  passage  in  the  speech — perhaps 
the  finest  in  all  Mr.  Gladstone's  speeches — was  the 
peroration  : 


THE  REFORM   BILLS  OF   1866-'67.  121 

"  Sir,  we  are  assailed ;  this  bill  is  in  a  state  of  crisis 
and  of  peril,  and  the  Government  along  with  it.  We 
stand  or  fall  with  it,  as  has  been  declared  by  my  noble 
friend  Lord  Russell.  We  stand  with  it  now ;  we  may 
fall  with  it  a  short  time  hence.  If  we  do  so  fall,  we,  or 
others  in  our  places,  shall  rise  with  it  hereafter.  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  measure  with  precision  the  forces  that 
are  to  be  arrayed  against  us  in  the  coming  issue.  Per- 
haps the  great  division  of  to-night  is  not  to  be  the  last, 
but  only  the  first  of  a  series  of  divisions.  At  some 
point  of  the  contest  you  may  possibly  succeed.  You 
may  drive  us  from  our  seats.  You  may  slay,  you  may 
bury,  the  measure  that  we  have  introduced.  But  we 
will  write  upon  its  gravestone  for  an  epitaph  this  line, 
with  certain  confidence  in  its  fulfillment : 

'  Exoriare  aliquis  nostris  ex  ossibus  ultor.' 

You  can  not  fight  against  the  future.  Time  is  on  our 
side.  The  great  social  forces  which  move  onward  in 
their  might  and  majesty,  and  which  the  tumult  of  these 
debates  does  not  for  a  moment  impede  or  disturb,  those 
great  social  forces  are  against  you  ;  they  work  with  us; 
they  are  marshaled  in  our  support.  And  the  banner 
which  we  now  carry  in  the  fight,  though,  perhaps,  at 
some  moment  of  the  struggle  it  may  droop  over  our 
sinking  heads,  yet  will  float  again  in  the  eye  of  heaven, 
and  will  be  borne  by  the  firm  hands  of  the  united  people 
of  the  three  kingdoms,  perhaps  not  to  an  easy,  but  to  a 
certain  and  to  a  not  distant  victory." 

The  immediately  following  division  took  place 
amid  scenes  of  the  greatest  excitement.  "  The 
Speaker  having  put  the  question,  members  with- 


122  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

drew.  After  voting,  the  '  Ayes '  and  the  'Noes' 
gradually  found  their  way  to  the  seats  on  the  floor 
and  in  the  galleries.  A  spectator,  describing  the 
memorable  scene,  says  that  in  about  twenty  min- 
utes a  strange,  electric-like  agitation  began  to 
manifest  itself.  Mr.  Walpole  whispered  to  Mr. 
Disraeli  the  word  'Six.'  Shortly  afterward  Mr. 
Brand  appeared,  and  it  was  known  that  the 
strength  of  the  Opposition  was  larger  than  the 
Liberals  had  feared  or  the  Tories  had  hoped.  Mr. 
Childers  rushed  up  the  floor  to  the  Treasury  bench, 
and,  in  a  tone  of  disappointment,  uttered  the 
word  '  Five '  to  Mr.  Gladstone.  Mr.  Adam,  the 
Government  teller,  now  emerged  upon  the  scene. 
The  House  was  charged  with  electricity  "like  a 
vast  thunder-cloud  ;  and  now  the  spark  was  about 
to  be  applied.  Strangers  rose  in  their  seats,  the 
crowd  at  the  bar  pushed  half  way  up  the  House, 
the  Royal  Princes  leaned  forward  in  their  standing- 
places,  and  all  was  confusion.  The  tellers  walked 
up  the  floor  and  made  due  obeisance  to  the  chair. 
Then,  loudly  and  distinctly,  Mr.  Brand  read  out 
the  numbers  as  follows  :  Ayes  to  the  right,  318  ; 
Noes  to  the  left,  313.  The  majority  for  the  Gov- 
ernment was  accordingly  five."  What  followed 
is  best  described  in  the  language  of  the  spectator 
just  mentioned  : 

"  Hardly  had  the  words  left  the  teller's  lips 
than  there  arose  a  wild,  raging,  mad-brained  shout 
from  floor  to  gallery,  such  as  had  never  been 


THE   REFORM  BILLS  OF   1866-'67.  123 

heard  in  the  present  House  of  Commons.  Dozens 
of  half-frantic  Tories  stood  up  in  their  seats, 
madly  waved  their  hats,  and  hurrahed  at  the 
top  of  their  voices.  Strangers  in  both  galleries 
clapped  their  hands.  The  Adullamites  on  the 
ministerial  benches,  carried  away  by  the  delirium 
of  the  moment,  waved  their  hats  in  sympathy 
with  the  Opposition,  and  cheered  as  loudly  as  any. 
The  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in  his  speech, 
had  politely  performed  the  operation  of  holding 
a  candle  to  Lucifer  (Mr.  Lowe) ;  and  he,  the 
prince  of  the  revolt,  the  leader,  instigator,  and 
prime  mover  of  the  conspiracy,  stood  up  in  the 
excitement  of  the  moment — flushed,  triumphant, 
and  avenged.  His  hair,  brighter  than  silver, 
shone  and  glistened  in  the  brilliant  light.  His 
complexion  had  deepened  into  something  like 
bishop's  purple.  His  small,  regular,  and  almost 
woman-like  features,  always  instinct  with  intelli- 
gence, now  mantled  with  the  liveliest  pleasure. 
He  took  off  his  hat,  waved  it  in  wide  and  tri- 
umphant circles  over  the  heads  of  the  very  men 
who  had  just  gone  into  the  lobby  against  him. 
*  Who  would  have  thought  there  was  so  much  in 
Bob  Lowe? '  said  one  member  to  another  ;  '  why, 
he  was  one  of  the  cleverest  men  in  Lord  Palmers- 
ton's  Government ! '  'All  this  comes  of  Lord 
Russell's  sending  for  Goschen,'  was  the  reply. 
'  Disraeli  did  not  half  so  signally  avenge  himself 
against  Peel,'  interposed  another  ;  '  Lowe  has  very 


124  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

nearly  broken  up  the  Liberal  party.'  These  may 
seem  to  be  exaggerated  estimates  of  the  situation  ; 
but  in  that  moment  of  agitation  and  excitement 
I  dare  say  a  hitndred  sillier  things  were  said 
and  agreed  to.  Anyhow,  there  he  stood,  that 
usually  cold,  undemonstrative,  intellectual,  white- 
headed,  red -faced,  venerable-looking  arch  -  con- 
spirator !  shouting  himself  hoarse,  like  the  ring- 
leader of  schoolboys  at  a  successful  barring-out, 
and  amply  repaid  at  that  moment  for  all  Skye- 
terrier  witticisms  and  any  amount  of  popular 
obloquy  !  But,  see,  the  Chancellor  of  the  Ex- 
chequer lifts  up  his  hand  to  bespeak  silence,  as  if 
he  had  something  to  say  in  regard  to  the  result 
of  the  division.  But  the  more  the  great  orator 
lifts  his  hand  beseechingly,  the  more  the  cheers 
are  renewed  and  the  hats  waved.  At  length  the 
noise  comes  to  an  end  by  the  process  of  exhaustion, 
and  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  rises.  Then 
there  is  a  universal  hush,  and  you  might  hear  a 
pin  drop.  He  simply  says,  *  Sir,  I  propose  to  fix 
the  committee  for  Monday,  and  I  will  then  state 
the  order  of  business.'  It  was  twilight,  brighten- 
ing into  day,  when  we  got  out  into  the  welcome 
fresh  air  of  New  Palace  Yard.  Early  as  was  the 
hour,  about  three  hundred  persons  were  assemiled 
to  see  the  members  come  out,  and  to  cheer  the 
friends  of  the  bill.  It  was  a  night  to  be  long  re- 
membered. The  House  of  Commons  had  lis- 
tened to  the  grandest  oration  ever  yet  delivered 


THE  REFORM  BILLS  OF   1866-'67.  125 

by  the  greatest  orator  of  his  age ;  and  had  then 
to  ask  itself  how  it  happened  that  the  Liberal 
party  had  been  disunited,  and  a  Liberal  majority 
of  sixty  'muddled  away.'  " 

The  division  is  said  to  have  been  the  largest 
that  ever  occurred — out  of  a  total  membership 
of  658,  including  the  Speaker,  631  had  voted. 
And  the  division  list  revealed  how  and  why  the 
Liberal  majority  had  been  "  muddled  away." 
With  the  Government  only  two  Conservatives  had 
voted,  but  against  them  there  were  arrayed  31 
Liberals  (Adullamites)  and  282  Conservatives. 
The  cause  of  Reform  had  been  betrayed  by  its  pro- 
fessed friends. 

"  The  Opposition  "  (to  quote  again  from  Mr. 
Molesworth's  excellent  History)  "  had  good 
grounds  for  their  exultation,  and  the  Ministerial- 
ists for  their  depression ;  for  the  victory  of  the 
Government  was  worse  than  a  defeat.  Their  ma- 
jority was  so  small  as  hardly  to  leave  a  prospect 
of  carrying  the  measure  ;  and  yet,'  having  a  ma- 
jority, they  were  obliged,  after  all  the  pledges 
they  had  given,  to  proceed  with  the  bill,  to  dis- 
solve, or  to  resign.  Intense  interest  was  felt  to 
know  which  of  these  courses  they  would  adopt. 
The  consequence  was  that,  at  the  time  of  the 
commencement  of  business,  on  Monday  after- 
noon, the  House  was  crowded,  in  anticipation  of 
a  statement  which  Mr.  Gladstone  had  announced 
that  he  intended  to  make.  He  rose  shortly  before 


126  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

five  o'clock,  and  informed  the  House  that  the 
Government  would  proceed  with  the  bill ;  that 
on  Monday  evening  next  leave  would  be  asked  to 
introduce  the  Distribution-of-seats  bill  ;  that  bills 
for  Scotland  and  Ireland  would  be  brought  in 
the  same  evening,  and  would  be  proceeded  with 
at  the  same  time  with  the  Franchise  bill.  The 
House  received  these  announcements  in  silence. 
The  decisive  battle  between  the  two  parties  ^as 
still  to  be  fought. 

"  On  Monday,  the  7th  of  May,  the  struggle 
took  a  new  shape.  On  that  day  the  whole  of  the 
Government  plan  of  reform  was  laid  before  the 
House.  Besides  the  Franchise  bill,  which,  as  we 
have  already  seen,  had  been  very  fully  discussed, 
the  promised  bill  for  the  redistribution  of  seats, 
and  the  Scotch  and  the  Irish  bills  were  brought 
forward.  .  .  .  On  Monday,  May  14th,  the  Redis- 
tribution bill  was  read  a  second  time,  in  a  House 
consisting  of  some  nine  or  ten  members.  Mr. 
Gladstone  announced  at  the  close  of  the  debate, 
in  reply  to  a  question  put  by  Sir  S.  Northcote, 
that  he  would,  on  behalf  of  the  Government,  ac- 
cede to  a  proposition  to  combine  the  Franchise  and 
Redistribution  bills,  and  submit  them  to  one  com- 
mittee on  that  day  fortnight.  Accordingly,  at 
the  specified  time,  the  two  bills  were  committed 
together,  Mr.  Gladstone  proposing,  and  the  com- 
mittee accepting,  some  amendments  which  were 
required  in  order  to  effect  their  amalgamation. 


THE  REFORM   BILLS  OF   1866-'67.  127 

We  will  not  weary  our  readers  by  tracing  the  prog- 
ress of  the  bill  through  committee.  Suffice  it, 
therefore,  to  say,  that  after  a  defeat  on  a  motion 
of  Sir  R.  Knightley,  that  *  it  be  an  instruction  to 
the  committee  that  they  have  power  to  make  pro- 
vision for  the  better  prevention  of  bribery  and 
corruption,'  the  measure  floated  on  till  Monday, 
18th  of  June,  when  the  clause  was  reached  which 
enacted  a  rental  franchise  in  boroughs.  Lord 
Dunkellin,  usually  a  supporter  of  the  Government, 
moved  as  an  amendment  on  this  clause  that  rating 
should  be  substituted  for  rental,  on  the  ground 
that  this  alteration  would  oppose  an  insurmount- 
able 'barrier  to  universal  suifrage,'  while  it  would 
admit  the  best  qualified  of  the  working  class  to 
the  franchise.  On  this  motion  the  House  divided, 
and  the  numbers  were  : 

For  the  amendment 315 

Against 304 

Majority  against  the  Government 11 

The  announcement  of  these  numbers  was  received 
by  the  Opposition  and  the  Cave  with  shouts 
even  more  deafening  than  those  which  had  been 
raised  when  it  was  found  that  the  second  read- 
ing had  been  carried  by  a  majority  of  five  only." 
On  the  following  day,  the  19th  of  June,  Earl 
Russell  in  the  Lords  and  Mr.  Gladstone  in  the 
Commons  announced  that,  in  consequence  of  their 


128  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

late  defeat,  the  Government  had  felt  it  to  be  their 
duty  to  make  a  communication  to  her  Majesty ; 
and  on  the  2Gth  Earl  Russell  stated  that  the  Min- 
isters had  tendered  their  resignations,  to  which 
they  had  adhered,  notwithstanding  an  appeal  from 
the  Queen  to  reconsider  their  determination.  The 
Earl  of  Derby,  therefore,  though  his  party  was  in 
a  hopeless  minority  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
formed  a  ministry,  with  Mr.  Disraeli  as  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer  and  leader  of  the  House,  Lord 
Stanley  as  Foreign  Secretary,  and  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  as  President  of  the  Board  of  Trade. 

Though  thus  defeated  and  arrested  in  Parlia- 
ment, the  cause  of  Eeform  was  not  allowed  to 
sleep.  Those  who  regarded  themselves  as  unjustly 
excluded  from  the  franchise  became  convinced 
that  their  claims  would  never  be  conceded  by  the 
Legislature  unless,  as  in  1832,  they  took  the  matter 
into  their  own  hands,  and  showed  in  an  unmis- 
takable manner  to  both  friends  and  foes  that 
they  were  thoroughly  in  earnest,  and  that,  what- 
ever Conservative  reaction  there  might  be  among 
the  enfranchised  classes,  it  did  not  extend  to  those 
who  were  denied  a  share  in  the  election  of  repre- 
sentatives to  the  House  of  Commons.  A  great 
Eeform  league  was  accordingly  formed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  holding  outdoor  meetings  and  otherwise 
agitating  in  favor  of  the  measure  from  which  it 
took  its  name.  On  the  23d  of  July  a  riot  oc- 
curred in  Hyde  Park  in  consequence  of  resistance 


THE   REFORM   BILLS  OF    1866--67.  129 

by  the  Government  to  a  proposed  demonstration 
of  the  league.  On  the  27th  of  August  a  monster 
meeting  was  held  at  Birmingham,  the  number 
attending  being  estimated  at  250,000 ;  and  at 
Manchester  another  demonstration  was  attended 
by  about  150,000  persons. 

During  the  entire  autumn  and  winter  the 
agitation  was  industriously  prosecuted ;  and  by 
the  time  of  the  meeting  of  Parliament  (in  Febru- 
ary, 1867)  the  Ministry  had  become  convinced 
that  neither  the  people  nor  the  House  of  Com- 
mons would  allow  the  question  to  remain  any 
longer  in  abeyance — "the  Ministry  could  not  have 
retained  office  a  single  fortnight  after  the  com- 
mencement of  the  session  if  it  had  declined  to 
deal  with  it."  Yet  there  were  obvious  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  a  party,  that  had  al  lalong  dreaded 
and  opposed  any  extension  of  the  suffrage,  taking 
the  lead  in  a  measure  of  Parliamentary  reform 
which  should  meet  and  satisfy  demands  that,  as 
usual,  had  grown  with  agitation.  In  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  object,  Mr.  Disraeli's  first  task 
was,  as  he  himself  said,  "  to  educate  our  party  up 
to  it." 

His  education  was  so  effective  that  even  the 
Earl  of  Derby  consented  to  advocate  what  he 
characterized  as  "a  leap  in  the  dark";  but  the 
Conservative  party  was  not  without  its  revolters 
and  its  Cave  of  Adullam.  Three  of  the  most 
prominent  members  of  the  Cabinet  resigned,  and 


130  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

several  of  his  quondam  supporters  assailed  Mr. 
Disraeli  in  the  bitterest  language  of  invective. 
Mr.  Beresford  Hope  declared  that  "  sink  or  swim, 
dissolution  or  no  dissolution,  whether  he  was  in 
the  next  Parliament  or  out  of  it,  he  for  one,  with 
his  whole  heart  and  conscience,  would  Arote  against 
the  Asian  mystery."  And  Lord  Cranborne  (now 
the  Marquis  of  Salisbury,  and  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
most  trusted  lieutenant)  said  :  "I  desire  to  pro- 
test, in  the  most  earnest  language  I  am  capable  of 
using,  against  the  political  morality  on  which  the 
manoeuvres  of  this  year  have  been  based.  If  you 
borrow  your  political  ethics  from  the  ethics  of  the 
political  adventurer,  you  may  depend  upon  it, 
the  whole  of  your  representative  institutions  will 
crumble  beneath  your  feet." 

Mr.  Disraeli  introduced  his  measure  on  the 
18th  of  March,  and  it  was  so  unsatisfactory  that 
it  speedily  became  apparent  that  its  rejection  was 
inevitable,  Mr.  Gladstone  pointing  out  nine  de- 
fects which  called  for  amendment,  and  evidently 
having  the  sense  of  the  House  with  him.  Per- 
ceiving the  fate  that  awaited  him,  Mr.  Disraeli 
allowed  it  to  be  seen  that  he  was  "squeezable"  ; 
and,  in  fact,  so  many  changes  were  effected  in  the 
bill  during  its  passage  through  committee  that  it 
was  completely  transformed.  On  the  15th  of 
July  the  bill  as  amended  was  read  a  third  time  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  on  the  Gth  of  August 
passed  the  House  of  Lords. 


THE  IRISH  CHURCH  QUESTION.  131 

Thus  Mr.  Disraeli,  having  accomplished  the 
unprecedented  feat  of  "  educating  "  his  own  party 
up  to  the  support  of  a  measure  opposed  to  all 
their  principles  and  traditions,  "dished  the 
Whigs"  by  passing  a  Reform  bill  exceeding  in 
its  democratic  tendencies  any  that  had  ever  been 
proposed  by  a  responsible  Liberal  Ministry. 

Shortly  after  this  remarkable  achievement  (in 
February,  1868)  Mr.  Disraeli,  became  leader  of 
the  Conservative  party  and  Prime  Minister  of 
England,  the  Earl  of  Derby  having  retired  on  the 
plea  of  ill  health. 


XI. 


ELECTORAL   STRUGGLE   OVER  THE  IRISH   CHURCH 
QUESTION. 

THE  opening  of  the  session  of  1868  witnessed 
a  state  of  things  said  to  be  without  a  parallel  in 
the  history  of  England — a.  Ministry  holding  the 
reins  of  power  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  its  sup- 
porters were  in  a  decided  minority  in  the  House 
of  Commons.  Mr.  Bouverie,  a  Liberal,  calling 
attention  to  the  condition  of  parties,  asked  : 
"Why  are  the  Conservatives  now  in  power? 
Simply  because  the  Liberal  party,  though  an  un- 
doubted majority  in  this  House,  and  representing 


132  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

a  vast  preponderance  of  opinion  in  the  country, 
does  not  deserve  to  be  called  a  party.  That  may 
be  an  unpalatable  truth,  but  it  is  a  truth,  notwith- 
standing. We  have  leaders  that  won't  lead,  and 
followers  that  won't  follow.  Instead  of  an  organ- 
ized party,  we  are  little  better  than  a  rabble." 

This  reproach,  though  justified  at  the  time  it 
was  uttered,  was  destined  to  be  speedily  removed. 
Other  progressive  questions  besides  that  of  Par- 
liamentary Reform  were  pressing  for  solution,  and 
soon  one  came  to  the  front  which  united  the 
Liberal  party  to  a  degree  previously  unknown, 
and  aroused  the  keenest  popular  interest.  Mr. 
Maguire  moved  that  the  House  resolve  itself  into 
a  committee  to  take  the  condition  of  Ireland  into 
immediate  consideration.  The  debate  upon  this 
motion  has  been  called  "  the  most  important  of 
the  generation,"  and  toward  the  close  of  it,  on  the 
16th  of  March,  Mr.  Gladstone  struck  the  first 
blow  in  the  struggle  that  was  destined  to  end  in 
the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church.  He 
complained  that  the  Ministerial  programme  of 
the  session's  work  failed  to  realize  the  grave 
fact  that  a  crisis  in  the  Irish  question  had  been 
reached.  Ireland,  he  said,  had  an  account  with 
England  which  had  endured  for  centuries,  and 
Englishmen  had  not  done  enough  to  place  them- 
selves in  the  right.  Coming  to  appeals  for  re- 
ligious equality,  he  affirmed  that  it  must  be 
established,  difficult  as  the  operation  might  be ; 


THE  IRISH  CHURCH  QUESTION.  133 

but  he  condemned  the  principle  of  leveling  up. 
As  to  the  appeals  which  had  been  made  urging 
the  Irish  people  to  loyalty  and  to  union,  Mr. 
Gladstone  said  that  was  his  object,  too  ;  but  with 
regard  to  the  means  the  differences  were  still  pro- 
found, and  it  was  idle,  it  was  mockery,  to  use 
words  unless  they  could  sustain  them  by  corre- 
sponding substances.  They  must  give  the  un- 
reserved devotion  of  their  efforts ;  and,  after 
warning  Mr.  Disraeli  that,  unless  he  had  some- 
thing more  satisfactory  to  say  on  the  subject  of 
justice  to  Ireland  than  his  colleagues,  this  ques- 
tion would  immediately  press  for  settlement,  he 
concluded  as  follows  : 

"If  we  are  prudent  men,  I  hope  we  shall  endeavor, 
as  far  as  in  us  lies,  to  make  some  provision  for  a  contin- 
gent, a  doubtful,  and  probably  a  dangerous  future.  If  we 
be  chivalrous  men,  I  trust  we  shall  endeavor  to  wipe 
away  all  those  stains  which  the  civilized  world  has  for 
ages  seen,  or  seemed  to  see,  on  the  shield  of  England  in 
her  treatment  of  Ireland.  If  we  be  compassionate  men, 
I  hope  we  shall  now,  once  for  all,  listen  to  the  tale  of 
woe  which  comes  from  her,  and  the  reality  of  which,  if  not 
its  justice,  is  testified  by  the  continuous  migration  of  her 
people — that  we  shall  endeavor  to 

1  Raze  out  the  written  troubles  from  her  brain, 
Pluck  from  her  memory  the  rooted  sorrow.' 

But,  above  all,  if  we  be  just  men,  we  shall  go  forward  in 
the  name  of  truth  and  right,  bearing  this  in  mind — that, 
when  the  case  is  proved,  and  the  hour  \B  come,  justice 
delayed  is  justice  denied." 


134  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

"  This  speech,"  says  Mr.  Smith,  "  excited  feel- 
ings of  consternation  among  the  Ministerialists. 
Mr.  Disraeli  bewailed  his  own  unhappy  fate,  at  the 
commencement  of  his  career  of  Prime  Minister,  at 
finding  himself  face  to  face  with  the  imperious 
necessity  of  settling  out  of  hand  an  account  seven 
centuries  old.  He  complained  that  all  the  ele- 
ments of  the  Irish  crisis  had  existed  while  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  in  office,  but  no  attempt  had  been 
made  to  deal  with  them.  The  spirit  of  the  age 
was  not,  he  asserted,  opposed  to  endowments,  as 
had  been  laid  down  by  Mr.  Bright — who,  with  the 
aid  of  the  philosophers,  had  now  converted  Mr. 
Gladstone  to  the  same  opinion.  For  himself,  he  was 
personally  in  favor  of  ecclesiastical  endowments, 
and  strongly  objected  to  the  destruction  of  the 
Irish  Church.  Mr.  Maguire,  being  urged  thereto 
by  Mr.  Gladstone,  withdrew  his  motion. 

"  But,  with  the  express  declarations  of  the  leader 
of  the  Opposition,  the  Irish  Church  question  had 
moved  forward  an  enormous  stage.  To  go  back 
now  was  impossible,  and  to  stand  still  was  equally 
impossible.  Mr.  Gladstone's  address  became  the 
basis  of  action  for  the  Liberal  party,  and  the 
country  speedily  took  up  the  cry  of  disestablish- 
ment. The  right  honorable  gentleman  himself,  not 
shrinking  from  following  up  the  policy  he  had  in- 
dicated, with  all  convenient  speed,  laid  upon  the 
table  of  the  House  of  Commons  the  following 
resolutions  upon  the  Irish  Church,  which  he 


THE   IRISH  CHURCH   QUESTION.  135 

intended  to  move  in  committee  of  the  whole 
House  : 

"  1.  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  House  it  is 
necessary  that  the  Established  Church  of  Ireland 
should  cease  to  exist  as  an  Establishment,  due  re- 
gard being  had  to  all  personal  interests  and  to  all 
individual  rights  of  property. 

"  2.  That,  subject  to  the  foregoing  considera- 
tions, it  is  expedient  to  prevent  the  creation  of 
new  personal  interests  by  the  exercise  of  any  pub- 
lic patronage,  and  to  confine  the  operations  of  the 
Ecclesiastical  Commissioners  of  Ireland  to  objects 
of  immediate  necessity,  or  involving  individual 
rights,  pending  the  final  decision  of  Parliament. 

"3.  That  an  humble  address  be  presented  to 
her  Majesty,  humbly  to  pray  that,  with  a  view  to 
the  purposes  aforesaid,  her  Majesty  will  be  gra- 
ciously pleased  to  place  at  the  disposal  of  Parlia- 
ment her  interest  in  the  temporalities,  in  arch- 
bishoprics, bishoprics,  and  other  ecclesiastical 
dignities  and  benefices  in  Ireland  and  in  the 
custody  thereof." 

The  Government  vigorously  opposed  the  mea- 
sure, Lord  Stanley  moving  an  amendment  to  the 
effect  that  in  the  opinion  of  the  House  any  propo- 
sition tending  to  the  disestablishment  or  disen- 
dowment  of  the  United  Church  in  Ireland  ought 
to  be  reserved  for  the  decision  of  a  new  Parlia- 
ment. On  this  motion  battle  was  joined,  and  on 
the  30th  of  March  the  conflict  began  with  a  power- 


136  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

ful  speech  delivered  by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  a  House 
crowded  with  eager  listeners.  The  titles  of  the 
acts  relating  to  the  Church  Establishment,  the 
5th  article  of  the  Act  of  Union,  and  the  corona- 
tion oath  of  the  Sovereign,  having  been  read  from 
the  table,  Mr.  Gladstone  remarked  that  these  ex- 
tracts from  existing  laws  would  serve  to  remind 
the  House  that  they  were  about  to  enter  upon  a 
solemn  duty.  Having  indicated  his  method  of 
procedure,  he  proposed — if  the  House  should  de- 
clare its  opinion  that  the  Irish  Establishment 
should  cease  to  exist — that  the  cessation  should 
be  effected  in  a  manner  worthy  of  the  nation, 
affording  ample  consideration  and  satisfaction  to 
every  proprietary  and  vested  right.  The  residue, 
after  satisfying  every  just  claim,  should  be  treated 
as  an  Irish  fund,  applicable  to  the  exclusive  bene- 
fit of  Ireland.  Both  the  Liberal  party  and  the 
Conservative  party,  he  said,  were  justified  hitherto 
in  not  taking  up  the  subject,  for  previous  to  this 
time  no  state  of  public  feeling  or  opinion  would 
have  enabled  this  great  question  to  be  opened  on 
the  wide  basis  which  it  required.  He  denied  that 
the  disendowment  of  the  Irish  Church  would  bo 
dangerous  to  the  English  Establishment.  What 
was  dangerous  to  the  latter  was  to  hold  her  m 
communion  with  a  state  of  things  politically  dan- 
gerous and  socially  unjust.  The  existence  of  the 
Irish  Church  was  not  necessary  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  Protestantism  in  Ireland.  Thou  ah  tho 


THE  IRISH  CHURCH   QUESTION.  137 

census  of  1861  showed  a  small  proportionate  in- 
crease of  Protestants,  the  rate  of  conversion  was 
so  small  that  it  would  take  1,500  or  2,000  years  to 
effect  an  entire  conversion,  if  it  went  on  at  the 
same  rate.  The  final  arrangements  in  this  matter 
might  be  left  to  a  reformed  Parliament,  but  he 
proposed  that  they  should  prevent  by  legislation 
this  session  the  growing  of  a  new  crop  of  vested 
interests.  There  had  been  a  connection  between 
England  and  Ireland  for  seven  hundred  years, 
but  it  had  been  marked  by  a  succession  of  storms 
and  temporary  calms.  He  called  upon  the  House 
to  settle  its  account  with  the  sister  island  by  re- 
moving the  whole  cause  of  dispute.  He  thus  elo- 
quently concluded  his  address  : 

"  There  are  many  who  think  that  to  lay  hands  upon 
the  national  Church  Establishment  of  a  country  is  a 
profane  and  unhallowed  act.  I  respect  that  feeling.  I 
sympathize  with  it.  I  sympathize  with  it,  while  I  think 
it  my  duty  to  overcome  and  repress  it.  But,  if  it  be  an 
error,  it  is  an  error  entitled  to  respect.  There  is  some- 
thing in  the  idea  of  a  national  establishment  of  religion, 
of  a  solemn  appropriation  of  a  part  of  the  common- 
wealth for  conferring  upon  all  who  are  ready  to  receive 
it  what  we  know  to  be  an  inestimable  benefit ;  of  saving 
that  portion  of  the  inheritance  from  private  selfishness, 
in  order  to  extract  from  it,  if  we  can,  pure  and  unmixed 
advantages  of  the  highest  order  for  the  population  at 
large.  There  is  something  in  this  so  attractive  that  it  is 
an  image  that  must  always  command  the  homage  of  tho 
many.  It  is  somewhat  liko  tin-  kindly  ghost  in  '  Hamlet,' 
of  which  one  of  the  characters  of  Shakespeare  says : 


138  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

'  We  do  it  wrong,  being  so  majestical, 
To  offer  it  the  show  of  violence  ; 
For  it  is,  as  the  air,  invulnerable, 
And  our  vain  blows  malicious  mockery.' 

But,  sir,  this  is  to  view  a  religious  establishment  upon 
one  side  only,  upon  what  I  may  call  the  ethereal  side. 
It  has  likewise  a  side  of  earth ;  and  here  I  can  not  do 
better  than  quote  some  lines  written  by  the  present  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin,  at  a  time  when  his  genius  was  devoted 
to  the  muses.  He  said,  in  speaking  of  mankind : 

'  We  who  did  our  lineage  high 
Draw  from  beyond  the  starry  sky, 
Are  yet  upon  the  other  side, 
To  earth  and  to  its  dust  allied.' 

And  so  the  Church  Establishment,  regarded  in  its  theory 
and  in  its  aim,  is  beautiful  and  attractive.  Yet  what  is 
it  but  an  appropriation  of  public  property — an  appropria- 
tion of  the  fruits  of  labor  and  of  skill  to  certain  pur- 
poses? and  unless  these  purposes  are  fulfilled,  that  appro- 
priation can  not  be  justified.  Therefore,  sir,  I  can  not  but 
feel  that  we  must  set  aside  fears  which  thrust  themselves 
upon  the  imagination,  and  act  upon  the  sober  dictates 
of  our  judgment.  I  think  it  has  been  shown  that  the' 
cause  for  action  is  strong — not  for  precipitate  action,  not 
for  action  beyond  our  powers,  but  for  such  action  as  the 
opportunities  of  the  times  and  the  condition  of  Parlia- 
ment, if  there  be  but  a  ready  will,  will  amply  and  easily 
admit  of.  If  I  am  asked  as  to  my  expectations  of  the 
issue  of  this  struggle,  I  begin  by  frankly  avowing  that 
I,  for  one,  would  not  have  entered  into  it  unless  I  be- 
lieved that  the  final  hour  was  about  to  sound — 

'  Venit  summa  dirs  et  inoluctabile  fatum.' 


THE   IRI:II   CIIUIIC-H   QUESTION.  139 

And  I  hope  that  the  noble  lord  will  forgive  me  if  I  say 
that  before  Friday  last  I  thought  that  the  thread  of  the 
remaining  life  of  the  Irish  Established  Church  was 
short,  but  that,  since  Friday  last,  when  at  half  past  four 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  the  noble  lord  stood  at  that 
table,  I  have  regarded  it  as  being  shorter  still.  The 
issue  is  not  in  our  hands.  What  we  had  and  have  to 
do  is  to  consider  well  and  deeply  before  we  take  the  first 
step  in  an  engagement  such  as  this ;  but,  having  entered 
into  the  controversy,  there  and  then  to  acquit  ourselves 
like  men,  and  to  use  every  effort  to  remove  what  still 
remains  of  the  scandals  and  calamities  in  the  relations 
which  exist  between  England  and  Ireland,  and  to  make 
our  best  efforts  at  least  to  fill  up  with  the  cement  of 
human  concord  the  noble  fabric  of  the  British  Empire." 

In  the  debate  which  followed,  Lord  Stanley, 
Lord  Cranborne,  Mr.  Gathorne  Hardy,  Mr.  Lowe, 
and  Mr.  Disraeli  made  forcible  speeches ;  and 
then  Mr.  Gladstone  made  a  closing  address,  in 
which  he  said  that  he  did  not  conceal  his  inten- 
tion to  separate  Church  from  State  in  Ireland,  and 
that  he  asked  the  expiring  Parliament  to  pro- 
nounce an  opinion  which  would  clear  the  way  for 
its  successor.  In  the  division  the  numbers  were 
— for  Lord  Stanley's  amendment,  270;  against, 
331 — majority  against  the  Government,  61.  On 
the  second  division  for  going  into  committee, 
there  appeared — for  the  motion,  328  ;  against,  272 
— majority  for  Mr.  Gladstone's  motion,  56. 

This  emphatic  expression  of  opinion  within 
the  House  of  Commons  was  reflected  out  of  doors, 


140  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

in  a  series  of  great  public  meetings,  which  were 
held  in  London  and  the  provinces  to  express  sym- 
pathy with  the  agitation  ;  and  both  sides  prepared 
actively  for  a  conflict  which  it  was  felt  must  prove 
decisive. 

Meanwhile,  the  issue  in  the  House  had  only 
been  fairly  joined,  not  fought  out ;  but,  on  the 
30th  of  April,  after  a  discussion  extending  over 
eleven  nights,  Mr.  Gladstone's  first  resolution  was 
carried  by  a  majority  of  65.  The  usual  course  for 
Government  after  such  a  defeat  was  either  to  re- 
sign or  to  dissolve  Parliament ;  but  Mr.  Disraeli 
resolved  to  postpone  dissolution  until  the  autumn, 
and  in  the  mean  time  to  carry  through  such  mea- 
sures for  Scotland  and  Ireland  as  would  enable  the 
new  Parliament  to  be  elected  under  the  provisions 
of  the  new  Eeform  bill.  Mr.  Gladstone's  second 
and  third  resolutions  were  passed  without  a  divi- 
sion, and  on  May  14th  he  obtained  leave  to  bring 
in  a  bill  to  prevent  for  a  limited  time  new  ap- 
pointments in  the  Irish  Church,  and  to  restrain 
for  the  same  period  the  proceedings  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical commissions  for  Ireland.  On  the  22d, 
after  a  lengthy  discussion,  this  suspensory  bill 
was  read  a  second  time,  the  majority  in  favor  of 
it  being  54.  Subsequently,  the  bill  was  thrown 
out  in  the  House  of  Lords,  but  this  was  now  of 
small  consequence,  as  the  great  question  was  to 
be  remitted  for  settlement  ti  the  constituencies. 
On  the  31st  of  July  Parliament  was  prorogued, 


THE  IRISH  CHURCH   QUESTION.  Ul 

with  a  view  to  its  dissolution  in  November,  and 
on  the  llth  of  November  writs  were  issued  for  a 
new  election. 

The  general  election  which  ensued  was  decid- 
edly the  most  remarkable  that  had  occurred  since 
that  which  followed  the  passing  of  the  Eeform  Act 
of  1832  ;  and  its  most  remarkable  incident  was  the 
defeat  of  Mr.  Gladstone  for  South  Lancashire. 
This  was  accomplished  by  tremendous  exertions 
on  the  part  of  his  opponents,  concentrated  with 
all  the  power  of  personal  dislike  and  party  hatred  ; 
but  the  effect  was  of  small  practical  importance, 
for,  while  the  contest  was  yet  undecided,  Green- 
wich returned  him  without  expense  and  without 
solicitation  on  his  part.  Other  prominent  Lib- 
erals experienced  unexpected  defeats  —  notably 
John  Stuart  Mill  in  Westminster,  and  the  Mar- 
quis of  Hartington  in  North  Lancashire — but  in 
the  country  at  large  an  enormous  preponderance 
of  Liberal  feeling  was  manifested,  and,  when  the 
elections  were  completed,  it  was  evident  that  the 
party  policy  would  be  supported  by  a  majority  of 
something  like  120  in  the  new  Parliament. 

The  national  verdict  being  so  unmistakable, 
Mr.  Disraeli  did  not  wait  for  the  meeting  of  Par- 
liament, but  promptly  resigned  ;  and  on  the  4th 
of  December  the  Queen  sent  for  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  authorized  him  to  form  a  ministry.  "Few 
governments,"  says  Mr.  Molesworth,  "have  ever 
been  more  popular  than  this  administration  at  the 


142  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

time  of  its  accession  to  office.  This  was  chiefly 
due  to  the  presence  in  it  of  Messrs.  Gladstone  and 
Bright,  in  whom  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  nation  had  great  confidence,  and  who,  on 
every  occasion  in  which  they  appeared  in  public, 
were  objects  of  the  warmest  demonstrations  of 
the  favor  and  confidence  with  which  they  were 
regarded." 


XII. 

"THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM." 

AT  the  opening  of  the  session  of  Parliament 
for  1869  Mr.  Gladstone  found  himself  at  the  head 
of  an  irresistible  majority  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons— "  a  Prime  Minister  personally  more  power- 
ful than  any  who  had  held  the  reins  of  State 
since  the  palmiest  days  of  Sir  Robert  Peel."  Much 
curiosity  was  felt  as  to  what  he  would  do  with  his 
power ;  and  there  were  not  wanting  those  who 
predicted  that  Mr.  Gladstone  at  the  head  of  the 
Government  would  be  less  eager  to  deal  with  so 
difficult  a  question  as  the  Irish  Church  than  Mr. 
Gladstone  at  the  head  of  a  turbulent  Opposition. 
Such  prophecies,  however,  were  speedily  falsified. 
The  Queen's  speech  promised  that  the  ecclesias- 
tical arrangements  of  Ireland  would  be  brought 


"TOE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM."   143 

under  the  consideration  of  the  House  at  a  very 
early  date ;  and  promptly  on  the  1st  of  March 
Mr.  Gladstone  introduced  his  great  measure  for 
the  disestablishment  and  partial  disendowment  of 
the  Irish  Church. 

Referring  to  the  speech  in  which  he  unfolded 
his  scheme,  Mr.  Wemyss  Reid  says  :  "  For  three 
hours  did  that  speech  flow  on  without  interrup- 
tion ;  it  was  long  enough  to  have  filled  a  goodly 
sized  volume,  and  yet  from  first  to  last  the  Pre- 
mier had  each  one  of  his  countless  figures  and  facts 
in  its  proper  place  ;  and  never  halted  or  stumbled 
for  a  moment  while  performing  his  tremendous 
task. "  Mr.  Disraeli  himself  afterward  described  the 
speech  as  eloquent,  full,  adequate,  and  not  contain- 
ing one  unnecessary  word ;  and  the  "  Daily  Tele- 
graph "  of  the  next  day  said  :  "  With  that  consum- 
mate skill  which  in  old  days  made  a  fine  art  of 
finance  and  taught  us  all  the  romance  of  the  rev- 
enue, Mr.  Gladstone  made  his  statistics  ornamental, 
and  deftly  wove  the  stiffest  strings  of  figures  into 
the  web  of  his  exposition.  Scarcely  even  so  much 
as  glancing  at  his  notes,  he  advanced  with  an  ora- 
torical step,  which  positively  never  once  faltered 
from  exordium  to  peroration  of  his  amazing  task  ; 
omitting  nothing,  slurring  nothing,  confusing 
nothing  ;  but  pouring  from  his  prodigious  faculty 
of  thought,  memory,  and  speech  an  explanation 
so  lucid  that  none  of  all  the  many  points  which 
he  made  was  obscure  to  any  of  his  listeners  when 


144  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

he  had  finished.  And,  charged  as  the  speech  ne- 
cessarily was  with  hard  and  stern  matter  of  fact 
and  figure,  the  intense  earnestness,  the  sincere 
satisfaction  of  the  speaker  at  the  act  of  concord 
and  justice  he  was  inaugurating,  gave  such  elas- 
ticity and  play  to  his  genius  that  nowhere  was 
the  clause  so  dry  or  the  calculation  so  involved, 
but  some  gentle  phrase  of  respect,  some  high  in- 
vocation of  principle,  some  bright  illumination 
of  the  theme  from  actual  life,  some  graceful  com- 
pliment to  his  hearers,  lightened  the  passage  of 
these  mountains  of  statistics,  and  kept  the  House 
spellbound  by  that  rich  and  energetic  voice. 
This  praise  may  seem  extravagant ;  but,  though 
Mr.  Gladstone  has  done  many  things  of  marvel- 
ous intellectual  and  oratorical  force,  his  exposi- 
tion last  evening  of  the  measure  from  which  will 
assuredly  date  the  pacification  and  happiness  of 
Ireland  was  a  Parliamentary  achievement  un- 
paralleled even  by  himself." 

The  peroration  of  the  speech  is  worth  repro- 
ducing, since  it  has  always  been  regarded  as  one 
of  the  orator's  happiest  efforts  : 

"I  do  not  know  in  what  country  so  great  a  change, 
so  great  a  transition,  has  been  proposed  for  the  min- 
isters of  a  religious  communion  who  have  enjoyed  for 
many  ages  the  preferred  position  of  an  Established 
Church.  I  can  well  understand  that  to  many  in  the 
Irish  Establishment  such  a  change  appears  to  be  nothing 
less  than  ruin  and  destruction  ;  from  the  height  on  which 


"THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM."   145 

they  now  stand  the  future  is  J,o  them  an  abyss,  and  their 
fears  recall  the  words  used  in  '  King  Lear,'  when  Edgar 
endeavors  to  persuade  Gloster  that  he  has  fallen  over 
the  cliffs  of  Dover,  and  says : 

'  Ten  masts  at  each  make  not  the  altitude 
Which  thou  hast  perpendicularly  fallen; 
Thy  life's  a  miracle ! ' 

And  yet  but  a  little  while  after  the  old  man  is  relieved 
from  his  delusion,  and  finds  he  has  not  fallen  at  all.  So 
I  trust  that  when,  instead  of  the  fictitious  and  adven- 
titious aid  on  which  we  have  too  long  taught  the  Irish 
Establishment  to  lean,  it  should  come  to  place  its  trust 
in  its  own  resources,  in  its  own  great  mission,  in  all  that 
it  can  draw  from  the  energy  of  its  ministers  and  its  mem- 
bers, and  the  high  hopes  and  promises  of  the  Gospel  that 
it  teaches,  it  will  find  that  it  has  entered  upon  a  new 
era  of  existence — an  era  bright  with  hope  and  potent 
for  good.  At  any  rate,  I  think  the  day  has  certainly 
come  when  an  end  is  finally  to  be  put  to  that  union,  not 
between  the  Church  and  religious  association,  but  be- 
tween the  Establishment  and  the  State,  which  was  com- 
menced under  circumstances  little  auspicious,  and  has 
endured  to  be  a  source  of  unhappiness  to  Ireland  and  of 
discredit  and  scandal  to  England.  There  is  more  to  say. 
This  measure  is  in  every  sense  a  great  measure — great 
in  its  principles,  groat  in  the  multitude  of  its  dry,  tech- 
nical, but  interesting  detail,  and  great  as  a  testing  measure ; 
for  it  will  show  for  one  and  all  of  us  of  what  metal  wo 
are  made.  Upon  us  all  it  brings  a  great  responsibility — 
great  and  foremost  upon  those  who  occupy  this  bench. 
We  are  especially  chargeable,  nay,  deeply  guilty,  if  we 
have  either  dishonestly,  as  some  think,  or  even  pre- 
maturely or  unwisely,  challenged  so  gigantic  an  issue.  I 
10 


146  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

know  well  the  punishments  that  follow  rashness  in  pub- 
lic affairs,  and  that  ought  to  fall  upon  those  men,  those 
Phaetons  of  politics,  who,  with  hands  unequal  to  the 
task,  attempt  to  guide  the  chariot  of  the  sun.  But  the 
responsibility,  though  heavy,  does  not  exclusively  press 
upon  us ;  it  presses  upon  every  man  who  has  to  take 
part  in  the  discussion  and  decision  upon  this  bill.  Every 
man  approaches  the  discussion  under  the  most  solemn 
obligations  to  raise  the  level  of  his  vision  and  expand  its 
scope  in  proportion  with  the  greatness  of  the  matter  in 
hand.  The  working  of  our  constitutional  government 
itself  is  upon  its  trial,  for  I  do  not  believe  there  ever 
was  a  time  when  the  wheels  of  legislative  machinery 
were  set  in  motion  under  conditions  of  peace  and  order 
and  constitutional  regularity  to  deal  with  a  question 
greater  or  more  profound.  And  more  especially,  sir,  are 
the  credit  and  fame  of  this  great  assembly  involved ; 
this  assembly,  which  has  inherited  through  many  ages 
the  accumulated  honors  of  brilliant  triumphs,  of  peace- 
ful but  courageous  legislation,  is  now  called  upon  to 
address  itself  to  a  task  which  would,  indeed,  have  de- 
manded all  the  best  energies  of  the  very  best  among 
your  fathers  and  your  ancestors.  I  believe  it  will  prove 
to  be  worthy  of  the  task.  Should  it  fail,  even  the  fame 
of  the  House  of  Commons  will  suffer  disparagement ; 
should  it  sucfieed,  even  that  fame,  I  venture  to  say,  will 
receive  no  small,  no  insensible  addition.  I  must  not  ask 
gentlemen  opposite  to  concur  in  this  view,  emboldened 
as  I  am  by  the  kindness  they  have  shown  me  in  listening 
with  patience  to  a  statement  which  could  not  have  been 
other  than  tedious ;  but  I  pray  them  to  bear  with  me 
for  a  moment  while,  for  myself  and  my  colleagues,  I  say 
we  are  sanguine  of  the  issue.  We  believe,  and  for  my  part 


"THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM."   147 

I  am  deeply  convinced,  that,  when  the  final  consumma- 
tion shall  arrive,  and  when  the  words  are  spoken  that 
shall  give  the  force  of  law  to  the  work  embodied  in  this 
measure — the  work  of  peace  and  justice — those  words 
will  be  echoed  upon  every  shore  where  the  name  of 
Ireland  or  the  name  of  Great  Britain  has  been  heard, 
and  the  answer  to  them  will  come  back  in  the  approving 
verdict  of  civilized  mankind." 

Mr.  Disraeli  did  not  oppose  the  introduction 
of  the  bill,  but  demanded  a  period  of  three  weeks 
in  which  to  consider  it.  This  delay  Mr.  Glad- 
stone declined  to  concede,  and  it  was  ultimately 
agreed  that  the  second  reading  should  be  proposed 
on  the  18th  of  March. 

"  Perhaps  an  abler  and  more  eloquent  debate," 
says  Mr.  Moles  worth,  "never  was  carried  on  in 
the  House  of  Commons  than  that  on  the  second 
reading  of  this  measure.  Not  to  mention  speakers 
of  less  importance  who  took  part  in  it,  there  was 
Mr.  Disraeli,  who  moved  that  the  bill  should  be 
read  that  day  six  months,  and  who,  though  of 
course  aware  that  he  was  playing  a  losing  game, 
delivered  one  of  the  most  forcible  speeches  he  ever 
pronounced  in  the  House  of  Commons.*  On  the 
same  side  Dr.  Ball  spoke  with  the  volubility  for 
which  his  countrymen  are  remarkable,  and  with 
an  ability  which  threw  into  the  shade  all  the  able 

*  The  London  u  Times  "  took  a  less  favorable  view  of 
the  speech,  describing  it  as  "  flimsiness  relieved  by  span- 
gles— the  definition  of  a  columbine's  skirt." 


118  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

efforts  he  had  previously  made.  Mr.  Miall  de- 
livered his  views  on  the  other  side  with  the  author- 
ity which  his  long  and  consistent  advocacy  of  the 
change  now  about  to  be  effected  gave  him,  and 
who  was  listened  to  by  all  parties  with  a  respect- 
ful attention  seldom  accorded  by  the  House  to  one 
known  as  a  strong  partisan.  Mr.  Bright  gave  the 
measure  the  support  of  his  high  reputation  and 
splendid  eloquence.  The  interest  he  took  in  the 
question  made  him  surpass  himself,  and  the  con- 
clusion of  his  speech,  in  which  he  claimed  for  the 
bill  before  the  House  the  support  of  the  Supreme 
Being,  as  to  a  measure  which  was  in  accordance 
with  His  glorious  attributes  of  truth,  justice,  and 
mercy,  was  delivered  with  a  manifest  earnestness 
and  sincerity  which  made  perhaps  as  profound  an 
impression  as  anything  that  ever  was  uttered  with- 
in the  walls  of  Parliament.  He  was  followed  by 
an  antagonist  in  every  way  worthy  of  him — Sir 
Eoundell  Palmer,  whose  conscientious  conviction 
on  this  question  had  prevented  him  from  joining 
a  ministry  whose  political  views  were  in  other  re- 
spects in  harmony  with  his  own  opinions,  and 
who  had  declined  the  Chancellorship  and  a  peer- 
age, to  which  the  services  he  had  rendered  to  the 
Liberal  party  had  given  him  an  undeniable  claim, 
rather  than  consent  to  a  measure  which  he  dis- 
approved. He  commanded  the  attention  to  which 
his  high  character  and  the  noble  sacrifice  he  had 
made  entitled  him  no  less  than  the  force  and  elo- 


"THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM."       149 

qucnce  with  which  he  urged  his  opinions.  Ad- 
mitting the  existence  of  the  discontent,  he  denied 
that  the  remedy  proposed  for  it  by  the  Govern- 
ment was  the  right  one.  Admitting  that  the  ex- 
istence of  the  Established  Church  in  Ireland  was 
a  grievance,  he  argued  that  the  grievance  might 
be  removed  without  a  confiscation  of  the  property 
of  the  Irish  Church.  He  was  answered  with  not 
unequal  eloquence  by  the  Solicitor-General,  Sir  J. 
Coleridge,  who,  however,  after  a  brief  and  respect- 
ful reply  to  the  argument  of  Sir  R.  Palmer,  applied 
himself  to  the  evidently  more  congenial  task  of 
pointing  out  the  necessity  that  existed  for  the 
measure,  and  the  advantages  it  was  calculated  to 
produce.  The  case  for  the  bill  was  ingeniously 
and  ably  put  by  Mr.  Lowe,  the  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer,  who  met  the  powerful  argument  of  Sir 
K.  Palmer  by  asking  the  House  if  they  would  con- 
sent to  disestablish  the  Irish  Church  and  to  leave 
it  in  possession  of  £16,000,000  worth  of  property 
without  connection  with  the  State,  and  without 
check  even  from  the  ecclesiastical  courts.  .  .  . 
But  of  all  the  speeches  against  the  bill,  decidedly 
the  ablest  and  most  eloquent  was  that  which  was 
delivered  by  Mr.  Gathorne  Hardy  toward  the  close 
of  the  long  debate,  and  it  was  received  by  the 
party  which  he  represented  with  applauses  far 
louder  and  more  rapturous  than  had  been  bestowed 
on  the  colder  and  more  argumentative  address  of 
their  leader.  He  could  discover  no  reason  for 


150  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

this  attack  on  the  Irish  Church  but  jealousy  like 
that  which  animated  Haman.  He  denied  that 
the  Church  was  a  badge  of  conquest  ;  he  rather 
regarded  it  as  an  imperial  light,  as  a  recognition 
by  the  Executive  of  the  superior  tenderness  of  the 
Almighty,  as  a  token  of  the  Protestantism  of  the 
Sovereign,  as  a  keeping  alive  in  the  dark  places  of 
Ireland  the  lamp  of  the  Reformation.  He  main- 
tained that  the  bill,  instead  of  restoring  peace  and 
concord  in  Ireland,  would  revive  agitation  and 
increase  discontent.  He  ran  rapidly  over  the 
chief  features  of  the  disendowment  scheme,  in 
order  to  show  that  they  would  fail  to  soften  the 
irritation  of  those  who  would  feel  themselves 
specially  aggrieved  by  the  measure.  He  said  that 
the  gift  of  churches  and  glebes  called  for  no  grat- 
itude. The  purchase  of  the  tithe  rent-charge  was 
a  puzzle,  the  treatment  of  Maynooth  a  mockery, 
the  Church  body  a  delusion,  the  proposed  disposal 
of  the  surplus  for  the  foundation  of  new  religious 
endowments,  and  their  seizure  for  imperial  pur- 
poses, both  violations  of  the  pledges  of  last  year. 
He  ended  by  drawing  a  highly  colored  picture  of 
the  condition  of  Ireland,  in  which  he  represented 
the  institutions  of  the  country  as  satisfactory, 
freedom  complete,  law  as  justly  administered  as 
in  England ;  but  the  people,  discontented  with- 
out any  real  cause,  sympathizing  with  crime,  and 
influenced,  not  for  good,  by  the  priesthood.  He 
concluded,  amid  the  loud  cheering  of  the  Oppo- 


"THE  GOLDEX  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM."       151 

sition,  by  insisting  that  an  interval  of  peace  and 
industry,  and  not  a  destructive  measure  such  as 
that  which  was  now  brought  forward — a  measure 
wrong  in  the  sight  of  God  and  opposed  to  the  in- 
terests of  the  empire — was  the  real  panacea  for  the 
evils  under  which  Ireland  was  suffering." 

It  was  near  one  o'clock  on  the  fourth  evening 
of  the  debate  that  Mr.  Gladstone  rose  to  close  the 
debate.  He  began  by  remarking  that  Mr.  Hardy 
had  shown  his  fitness  for  a  task  which  Burke  had 
disclaimed — that  of  drawing  an  indictment  against 
a  whole  nation.  Yet,  even  in  a  picture  of  the 
Irish  people  so  unjust  as  to  amount  to  a  libel, 
serious  evils  were  admitted,  for  which  Mr.  Hardy 
had  no  remedy.  But  the  Government,  recognizing 
the  existence  of  the  Irish  question,  the  result  of 
years  of  previous  misgovernment,  had  a  remedy 
which  they  proposed  of  necessity  piecemeal.  Run- 
ning over  the  four  nights'  debate,  he  failed  to  dis- 
cover any  rival  plan  that  had  been  proposed  in  the 
place  of  that  which  he  had  brought  forward,  and 
the  charges  urged  against  the  Government  only 
proved  that  they  had  fairly  fulfilled  their  pledge. 
In  conclusion,  he  said  : 

"  As  the  clock  points  rapidly  toward  the  dawn,  so 
are  rapidly  flowing  out  the  years,  the  months,  the  days 
that  remain  to  the  existence  of  the  Irish  Established 
Church.  .  .  .  Not  now  are  we  opening  this  great  ques- 
tion. Opened,  perhaps,  it  was  when  the  Parliament 
which  expired  last  year  pronounced  upon  it  that  em- 


152  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

phatic  judgment  which  can  never  be  recalled.  Opened 
it  was,  further,  when  in  the  months  of  autumn  the  dis- 
cussions which  were  held  in  every  quarter  of  the  country 
turned  mainly  on  the  subject  of  the  Irish  Church.  Prose- 
cuted another  stage  it  was,  when  the  completed  elec- 
tions discovered  to  us  a  manifestation  of  the  national 
verdict  more  emphatic  than,  with  the  rarest  exceptions, 
has  been  witnessed  during  the  whole  of  our  Parliamen- 
tary history.  The  good  cause  was  further  advanced 
toward  its  triumphant  issue  when  the  silent  acknowlr 
edgment  of  the  late  Government  that  they  declined  to 
contest  the  question  was  given  by  their  retirement  from 
office,  and  their  choosing  a  less  responsible  position,  from 
which  to  carry  on  a  more  desultory  warfare  against  the 
policy  which  they  had  in  the  previous  session  unsuccess- 
fully attempted  to  resist.  Another  blow  will  soon  be 
struck  in  the  same  good  cause,  and  I  will  not  intercept 
it  one  single  moment  more." 

The  division  was  then  taken,  and  the  result 
was — for  the  second  reading,  368  ;  against,  250  ; 
majority  for  the  Government,  118.  This  majority 
was  overwhelming  and  decisive  ;  yet  the  progress 
through  committee  was  so  extremely  slow  that 
exactly  three  months  had  elapsed  after  the  intro- 
duction of  the  bill  before  the  third  reading  came 
on.  The  motion  for  a  third  reading  was  strenu- 
ously opposed,  Mr.  Disraeli  declaring  that  the 
passage  of  the  measure  would  lead  to  the  ascend- 
ancy of  the  Papal  power  in  Ireland,  with  a  conse- 
quent reaction  in  England,  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
making  a  final  and  eloquent  defense  of  his  scheme. 


"THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM."   153 

On  the  division  the  Government  had  a  majority 
of  114. 

In  the  House  of  Lords  the  bill  narrowly  es- 
caped being  thrown  out  on  the  second  reading, 
Lord  Derby,  in  the  last  speech  he  ever  made,  de- 
nouncing it  as  a  scheme  the  political  folly  of 
which  was  only  equaled  by  its  moral  turpitude. 
But  the  peers  had  so  often  experienced  the  evil 
results  of  setting  themselves  against  the  clearly 
pronounced  wishes  of  the  people  that  the  more 
prudent  concluded  to  accept,  with  as  good  grace 
as  they  could  muster,  a  bill  which  had  come  up 
from  the  Commons  by  a  majority  that  rendered 
resistance  evidently  hopeless  ;  and  the  second 
reading  was  carried  by  a  small  majority.  "  The 
question  now  arose,  What  would  be  done  in  com- 
mittee ?  Various  amendments  were  carried  of  an 
important  nature,  to  some  of  which  the  Govern- 
ment could  not  agree.  The  bill  eventually  passed 
the  Lords  by  121  to  114,  under  a  protest  signed 
by  Lord  Derby  and  forty- three  temporal  and  two 
spiritual  peers.  The  Lords'  amendments  were 
considered  by  the  Commons,  and  the  chief  of 
them  were  disagreed  with.  They  were  then  sent 
back  to  the  Lords,  and  an  animated  debate  ensued 
in  the  Upper  House.  Lord  Grey  complained  that 
the  Lords  were  humiliated  and  degraded,  and 
Lord  Salisbury  said  their  lordships  were  called 
upon  to  yield  to  the  arrogant  will  of  a  single  man. 
The  Earl  of  Winuhilseu  compared  Mr.  Gladstone 


154  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

to  Jack  Cade,  and,  after  hinting  at  the  coming  of 
an  Oliver  Cromwell,  declared  that  he  was  ready 
for  the  block  sooner  than  surrender.  A  confer- 
ence upon  contested  points  afterward  took  place 
between  Lord  Granville  and  Lord  Cairns,  and  a 
compromise  was  arrived  at.  This  compromise 
was  accepted  by  the  Commons,  and  on  the  26th 
of  July  the  Irish  Church  bill  received  the  royal 
assent." 

Thus  passed  a  measure  which  had  excited  more 
angry  controversy  than  any  that  had  been  pro- 
posed in  Parliament  since  the  great  Eeform  bill 
of  1832.  "  It  was  carried  through  its  various 
stages,"  says  a  writer  in  the  "Annual  Register," 
for  1869,  "  mainly  by  the  resolute  will  and  un- 
flinching energy  of  the  Prime  Minister,  who, 
throughout  the  long  and  arduous  discussions,  in 
which  he  took  the  leading  part,  displayed,  in  full 
measure,  those  qualities  of  acuteness,  force  of 
reasoning,  and  thorough  mastery  of  his  subject 
for  which  he  had  long  been  conspicuous,  but 
which  were  never  more  signally  exhibited  than  on 
this  occasion.  Upon  the  whole,  whatever  may 
be  thought  of  its  merits  or  demerits,  it  can  hardly 
be  disputed  that  the  act  for  the  disestablishment 
of  the  Irish  Church,  introduced  and  carried  into 
a  law  within  somewhat  less  than  five  months, 
was  the  most  remarkable  legislative  achievement 
of  modern  times." 

In  the  course  of  the  debate  on  the  Irish  Church 


"TUB  GOLDEN  AGE  OP  LIBERALISM."       155 

bill  Mr.  Gladstone  had  announced  that  that  bill 
was  only  part  of  a  general  scheme,  which  would 
have  to  be  introduced  piecemeal,  and,  accordingly, 
during  the  next  session  (1870)  he  introduced  the 
second  of  his  great  remedial  measures — the  Irish 
Land  bill,  the  object  of  which  was  to  remove  the 
more  crying  evils  connected  with  the  tenure  and 
cultivation  of  land  in  Ireland.  On  the  15th  of 
February  he  brought  forward  the  bill  in  a  crowded 
House,  delivering  a  speech  which  was  as  con- 
vincing as  it  was  eloquent,  and  which  ended  with 
the  following  fine  passage  : 

"  If  I  am  asked  what  I  hope  to  effect  by  this  bill,  I 
certainly  hope  we  shall  effect  a  great  change  in  Ireland ; 
but  I  hope  also,  and  confidently  believe,  that  this  change 
will  be  accomplished  by  gentle  means.  Every  line  of  the 
measure  has  been  studied  with  the  keenest  desire  that  it 
shall  import  as  little  as  possible  of  shock  or  violent  alter- 
ation into  any  single  arrangement  now  existing  between 
landlord  and  tenant  in  Ireland.  There  is,  no  doubt,  much 
to  be  undone  ;  there  is,  no  doubt,  much  to  be  improved ; 
but  what  we  desire  is  that  the  work  of  this  bill  should  be 
like  the  work  of  Nature  herself,  when  on  the  face  of  a 
desolated  land  she  restores  what  has  been  laid  waste  by 
the  wild  and  savage  hand  of  man.  Its  operations,  we 
believe,  will  be  quiet  and  gradual.  We  wish  to  alarm 
none;  we  wish  to  injure  no  one.  What  we  wish  is  that 
where  there  has  been  despondency  there  shall  be  hope; 
where  there  has  been  mistrust  there  shall  be  confidence ; 
where  there  has  boon  alienation  and  hate  there  shall,  how- 
ever gradually,  be  woven  the  ties  of  a  strong  attachuaeut 


156  WILLIAM   EWART  GLADSTONE. 

between  man  and  man.  This  we  know  can  not  be  done 
in  a  day.  -  The  measure  has  reference  to  evils  which  have 
been  long  at  work ;  their  roots  strike  far  back  into  by- 
gone centuries,  and  it  is  against  the  ordinance  of  Provi- 
dence, as  it  is  against  the  interest  of  man,  that  immediate 
reparation  should  in  such  cases  be  possible ;  for  one  of 
the  main  restraints  of  misdoing  would  be  removed,  if  the 
consequences  of  misdoing  could  in  a  moment  receive  a 
remedy.  For  such  reparation  and  such  effects  it  is  that 
we  look  from  this  bill,  and  we  reckon  on  them  not  less 
surely  and  not  less  confidently  because  we  know  they 
must  be  gradual  and  slow  ;  and  because  we  are  likewise 
aware  that,  if  it  be  poisoned  by  the  malignant  agency  of 
angry  or  of  bitter  passions,  it  can  not  do  its  proper  work. 
In  order  that  there  may  be  a  hope  of  its  entire  success, 
it  must  pass — not  as  a  triumph  of  party  over  party,  or 
class  over  class;  not  as  the  lifting  up  of  an  ensign  to  re- 
cord the  downfall  of  that  which  has  once  been  great  and 
powerful — but  as  a  common  work  of  common  love  and 
good-will  to  the  common  good  of  our  common  country. 
With  such  objects,  and  in  such  a  spirit  as  that,  this  House 
will  address  itself  to  the  work,  and  sustain  the  feeble 
efforts  of  the  Government.  And  my  hope,  at  least,  is 
high  and  ardent  that  we  shall  live  to  see  our  work  pros- 
per in  our  hand,  and  that  in  that  Ireland  which  we  desire 
to  unite  to  England  and  Scotland  by  the  only  enduring 
ties — those  of  free-will  and  free  affection — peace,  order, 
and  a  settled  and  cheerful  industry  will  diffuse  their 
blessings  from  year  to  year,  and  from  day  to  day,  over  a 
smiling  land." 

There  was  no  intention  on  the  part  of  the  Op- 
position to  divide  against  the  second  reading  of 


"THE  GOLDEN  AGE  OF  LIBERALISM."       157 

the  bill,  but  a  division  was  forced  by  a  few  irre- 
concilables  with  this  extraordinary  result — For 
the  second  reading,  442  ;  against,  11.  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli and  many  of  his  influential  supporters  went 
into  the  lobby  with  Mr.  Gladstone.  After  many 
prolonged  discussions,  the  bill  was  read  a  third 
time  on  the  30th  of  May,  and,  after  passing  in  the 
Lords  without  a  division,  it  received  the  royal 
assent  on  the  1st  of  August. 

Another  important  measure  which  was  added 
to  the  statute  book  during  the  session  of  1870  was 
an  Elementary  Education  Act,  by  means  of  which 
cheap  and  efficient  education  was  brought  within 
reach  of  the  poorest  in  the  land.  Both  these  mea- 
sures were  passed  in  a  session  occupied  with  minor 
administrative  reforms,  and  disturbed  and  inter- 
rupted by  interpellations  and  debates  on  the  policy 
of  the  Government  with  respect  to  the  war  between 
France  and  Prussia. 

The  session  of  1871  witnessed  the  passage  of  the 
Army  Regulation  bill,  embodying  the  abolition  of 
Purchase,  which  latter  Mr.  Gladstone  finally  ac- 
complished, in  opposition  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
by  invoking  the  Royal  Warrant.  The  Ballot  bill 
was  also  passed  in  the  Commons  during  this  ses- 
sion, but  was  thrown  out  by  the  Lords.  In  the 
following  year  it  was  brought  in  again,  and,  being 
put  in  the  forefront  of  the  Government  programme, 
was  carried.  In  May  of  this  year  a  threatened 
n  pture  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 


158  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

States  was  averted  by  the  conclusion  of  the  Treaty 
of  Washington ;  and  a  heated  debate  took  place 
over  the  policy  pursued  by  the  Government  on 
the  occasion  of  Eussia  repudiating  those  portions 
of  the  Paris  Treaty  of  1856  which  secured  the 
neutralization  of  the  Black  Sea. 

To  the  years  1869,  1870,  and  1871,  Mr.  Smith 
has  given  the  designation  which  we  have  chosen  as 
the  title  of  the  present  chapter.  "  That  period," 
he  remarks,  "which  (to  say  nothing  of  minor 
measures)  witnessed  the  passing  of  the  Irish 
Church  Act,  the  Endowed  Schools  bill,  the  Bank- 
ruptcy bill,  the  Habitual  Criminals  bill,  the  Irish 
Land  Act,  the  Elementary  Education  Act,  the 
Abolition  of  Purchase  in  the  Army,  the  negotia- 
tion of  the  Washington  treaty,  the  passing  of  the 
University  Tests  bill,  and  of  the  Trades  Union 
bill,  and  the  repeal  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles 
Act,  may  well  be  entitled  to  the  appellation  of  the 
golden  age  of  Liberalism.  There  have  been  few 
periods  in  the  history  of  this  country — we  might 
venture  almost  to  say  there  have  been  none — 
when  measures  of  equal  magnitude  have  been 
passed  within  this  limited  space  of  time.  '  The 
hour  and  the  man '  were  both  designed  for  the 
task  which  had  to  be  accomplished.  Never  was 
there  an  age  when  a  stronger  zeal  for  reform  was 
manifested — taking  reform  now  not  merely  in  a 
political  and  Parliamentary,  but  in  a  social, 
religious,  and  national  sense  ;  and  never  was  there 


REACTION  AND  RETIREMENT.  159 

a  statesman  more  fully  capable  of  meeting  the  needs 
of  such  an  age  than  Mr.  Gladstone. 


XIII. 

REACTION   AND  RETIREMENT. 

IT  is  an  unfortunate  but  a  universal  truth  that 
great  efforts  produce  reaction,  and  that  enthusiasm 
subsides  into  lassitude  ;  and  Mr.  Gladstone  had  no 
sooner  passed  his  great  reform  measures  than  he 
began  to  experience  the  effects  of  that  reaction 
which  follows  upon  unusual  effort.  As  long  as  he 
could  rely  upon  the  united  support  of  his  party, 
he  was  irresistible  ;  but  it  was  only  on  the  Irish 
question  that  Mr.  Bouverie's  "  rabble  "  had  become, 
a  disciplined  army,  and  the  Golden  Age  of  Liber- 
alism had  hardly  begun  when  symptoms  of  discon- 
tent began  to  manifest  themselves  among  different 
sections  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  followers. 

An  influential  section  of  the  Nonconformists 
had  resented  a  clause  in  the  Education  Act 
which  extended  aid  to  denominationalists.  The 
extinction  of  abuses  by  the  Endowed  School  Com- 
mission led  to  piteous  outcries.  The  clergy  trem- 
bled for  the  Bible  and  for  their  schools.  Mr. 
Gladstone's  foreign  policy  was  assailed  with  much 
clamor.  There  were  patriots  who  would  rather 


160  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

have  fought  over  the  Alabama  Claims  than  have 
paid  them  ;  and  the  Government  was  accused  of 
playing  a  "feeble"  part  in  the  Franco-German 
War.  Opponents  of  the  Abolition  of  Purchase 
declared  the  Constitution  had  been  strained  by 
the  issue  of  the  Royal  Warrant.  Mr.  Bruce  al- 
ienated the  whole  of  the  brewing  interest  by  his 
licensing  bill,  and  the  Government  were  absurdly 
held  responsible  for  a  series  of  disasters  reflecting 
upon  the  Admiralty.  Indignation  was  aroused 
when  Sir  Robert  Collier  was  gazetted  as  a  Puisne 
Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas,  for  the  purpose  of 
qualifying  him  for  an  appointment  to  the  Judicial 
Committee  ;  and  another  "  scandal "  was  pro- 
duced when  the  Rev.  W.  W.  Harvey  was  made  a 
member  of  the  Oxford  Convocation  in  order  that 
he  might  succeed  to  the  vacant  rectory  of  Ewelme. 
Finally,  several  members  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Cab- 
inet had  succeeded  in  rendering  themselves  per- 
sonally unpopular. 

But  the  reaction  was  mainly  due,  as  we  have 
said,  to  more  general  causes.  Mr.  Gladstone  had 
lived  fast  and  traveled  far.  He  had  crowded  as 
much  work  into  three  sessions  as  would  formerly 
have  been  estimated  as  the  full  allowance  of  three 
Parliaments.  He  had  done  all  and  more  than  all 
that  he  had  promised — far  more  than  might  reason- 
ably have  been  anticipated  on  his  entering  office. 
In  fact,  his  pace  had  been  far  too  rapid  for  his 
easy-going  Whig  supporters,  and,  when  they  found 


REACTION  AND  RETIREMENT.  101 

that  the  passage  of  the  Irish  bills  had  not  secured 
them  a  respite,  they  began  to  murmur  against 
so-called  "  heroic  "  legislation. 

The  first  marked  symptom  of  his  waning 
popularity  was  shown  in  1871,  when  a  section  of 
his  own  constituents  drew  up  a  petition  inviting 
him  to  resign  his  seat  for  Greenwich.  This 
movement  was  promptly  repudiated  by  the  ma- 
jority of  his  constituents,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  won 
back  most  of  his  personal  popularity  by  a  great 
open-air  speech  delivered  on  Blackheath  to  an  au- 
dience of  20,000  persons ;  but  the  discontent  in 
Parliament  was  more  dangerous  and  less  easily 
dealt  with.  In  the  session  of  1872  the  growing 
apathy  of  his  supporters  was  shown  at  the  bring- 
ing in  of  the  Ballot  bill — a  measure  of  the  first 
importance,  but  for  the  division  on  the  second 
reading  of  which  the  strenuous  exertion  of  the 
party  whips  could  muster  an"  aggregate  voting 
power  of  only  165.  The  third  reading  was  carried 
by  276  votes  against  218  ;  figures  which  show  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  still  had  a  substantial  majority  in 
the  House.  'But  the  crisis  was  reached  when  the 
Irish  University  bill  brought  about  a  new  birth  of 
the  Cave  of  Adullam,  and  was  defeated  by  a  co- 
alition between  the  extreme  Liberals  and  the  ever- 
watchful  Conservatives. 

Mr.  Gladstone  regarded  this  bill  as  calculated 
to  efface  the  last  of  the  religious  and  social  griev- 
ances of  Ireland,  and  as  putting  a  finishing 
11 


162  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

stroke  to  the  work  to  which  his  Government  had 
pledged  itself  on  coming  into  office.  He  intro- 
duced it  at  an  early  period  of  the  session  of  1873 
in  "  a  remarkably  able  and  argumentative  speech  ; 
which  quite  carried  away  the  House  ;  and  it  was 
thought  at  first  that  the  bill  would  command  al- 
most unanimous  support.  But,  when  the  measure 
came  to  be  deliberately  scanned,  objections  were 
raised  against  it  which  had  not  at  first  presented 
themselves,  and  it  soon  came  to  be  seen  that  the 
bill  would  encounter  the  strong  opposition  of  the 
Irish  Roman  Catholic  hierarchy,  while  many  Irish 
Protestants  were  also  induced  to  oppose  it  through 
an  utterly  unfounded  fear  that  the  Catholic  claims 
would  be  conceded."  In  fact,  as  one  of  its  critics 
said,  the  bill  "offended  everybody  and  pleased 
nobody,"  and,  after  a  prolonged  and  animated  de- 
bate, it  was  rejected  by  a  majority  of  three  in  a 
House  of  571  members. 

As  Mr.  Gladstone  had  distinctly  declared  in 
the  course  of  the  debate  that  the  Government 
would  stand  or  fall  by  their  measure,  he  and  his 
colleagues  at  once  resigned  their  offices,  and  Mr. 
Disraeli  was  sent  for  by  the  Queen  to  form  a  new 
administration.  Knowing  that  he  would  be  in 
a  hopeless  minority  in  the  House,  Mr.  Disraeli 
declined  the  task,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  reluctantly 
returned  to  office  and  resumed  the  business  of  the 


Naturally,  the  defeat  of  the  Government  did 


REACTION   AND  RETIREMENT.  163 

not  improve  either  the  temper  or  the  prospects  of 
the  Liberal  party,  while  it  threw  fresh  vigor  into 
the  ranks  of  their  opponents.  "The  session," 
says  Mr.  Lucy,  "flickered  to  an  end  amid  con- 
stant wrangles  and  an  aggravating  disregard  for 
authority.  In  vain  Mr.  Ayrton  had  been  cast 
overboard,  and  in  vain  Mr.  Lowe  repeated  in  his 
own  person  the  role  of  Jonah.  The  Ministerial 
ship  would  not  right,  but  lay  in  the  trough  of  the 
sea,  an  object  of  derision  from  the  fickle  public 
who,  five  years  earlier,  had  helped  to  launch  it 
amid  demonstrations  of  the  wildest  enthusiasm. 
Buffeted  abroad,  assailed  from  within,  angry,  dis- 
pirited with  existing  circumstances,  and  hopeful 
of  the  verdict  of  a  nation  whose  behests  he  had 
splendidly  fulfilled,  Mr.  Gladstone  suddenly  cut 
the  Gordian  knot.  On  the  24th  of  January, 
1874,  just  on  the  eve  of  the  assembling  of  Parlia- 
ment for  tfie  customary  session,  the  country 
awoke  to  find  that  Parliament  was  dissolved.  It 
was  through  the  medium  of  an  address  to  the 
electors  of  Greenwich  that  the  startling  news  was 
communicated.  There  was  considerable  vigor  in 
the  lengthy  document,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  a 
few  months  earlier,  upon  the  resignation  of  Mr. 
Lowe,  had  returned  to  his  old  office  of  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer,  promised  a  renewed  exhibition 
of  the  magic  with  which  the  country  was  once 
familiar,  and  which  should  now  be  directed  to  the 
extinction  of  the  income  tax.  But  between  the 


164  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

lines  it  was  not  difficult  to  read  that  the  great 
statesman  was  weary  and  sick  at  heart.  '  If,'  he 
said,  c  the  trust  of  this  Administration  be  by  the 
effect  of  the  present  elections  virtually  renewed,  I 
for  one  will  serve  you,  for  what  remains  of  my  time, 
gratefully  ;  if  the  confidence  of  the  country  be 
taken  from  us,  and  handed  over  to  others  whom 
you  may  deem  more  worthy,  I, for  one  will  accept 
cheerfully  my  dismissal.'  There  was  no  presage 
of  victory  in  such  a  call  to  battle.  But  in  his 
gloomiest  moments  Mr.  Gladstone  could  not  have 
anticipated  the  full  depth  of  the  reverse  of  for- 
tune which  awaited  him  at  the  poll.  He  himself 
narrowly  escaped  defeat  at  Greenwich — coming  in 
second — the  head  of  the  poll  being  reserved  for 
an  estimable  but  obscure  Conservative.  Else- 
where, all  along  the  line,  the  Liberals  were  de- 
feated. The  solid  phalanx  that  had  carried  the 
Irish  Church  bill,  the  Irish  Land  Bill,  the  Edu- 
cation bill,  and  the  Ballot  bill  was  hopelessly 
shattered.  When  the  gains  and  losses  were 
counted  up,  it  was  found  that  Mr.  Disraeli,  meet- 
ing Parliament  in  1874,  was  almost  exactly  in  the 
same  position  as  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  when 
meeting  Parliament  in  1869.  The  pendulum, 
having  swung  violently  to  one  side,  had  in  return 
reached  nearly  the  same  altitude  on  the  other." 

Discussing  this  result  recently,  in  an  article 
in  the  "  Fortnightly  Review,"  Mr.  Henry  Dunck- 
ley  says  :  "  Mr.  Gladstone's  share  in  producing 


REACTION   AND   RETIREMENT.  165 

this  catastrophe  has  not  escaped  censure.  Un- 
doubtedly but  for  him  it  need  not  have  happened 
when  it  did,  and  might  not  have  happened  at  all. 
The  Parliament  of  18G8  had  still  two  sessions  to 
live,  and  on  every  question  but  one  the  Govern- 
ment might  count  upon  being  supported  by  de- 
cisive majorities.  In  the  course  of  two  years  the 
Conservative  reaction  might  have  itself  reacted, 
while  the  Liberals  would  have  had  leisure  to  array 
their  forces  instead  of  being  taken  unawares.  In 
any  case,  if  defeat  had  come  at  last,  it  would  have 
come  in  a  less  dramatic  form,  with  less  of  pomp 
and  circumstance  for  the  victors.  Perhaps  the 
resolution  to  dissolve  was  rash,  but  it  was,  at  all 
events,  a  noble  indiscretion.  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
assailed  on  all  sides  with  the  cry  that  he  had  not 
the  confidence  of  the  nation,  and  there  were  some 
grounds  for  believing  that  it  was  true.  Within 
the  last  three  years  the  Liberals  again  and  again 
have  sought  to  bring  it  home  to  Lord  Beacons- 
field's  conscience  that  he  ought  to  sacrifice  his 
enormous  majority  in  Parliament  and  submit  him- 
self to  the  country.  It  is  true  that  in  his  case  a 
policy  had  been  entered  upon  which  was  not 
dreamed  of  when  the  present  Parliament  was 
elected,  but  the  principle  implied  in  the  appeal 
to  Lord  Beaconsfield  covers  every  case  in  which  a 
Premier  has  reason  to  doubt  whether  he  still  re- 
tains the  confidence  of  the  country.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone scorned  to  tolerate  a  doubt  on  this  point. 


166  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

He  would  rule  with  the  assent  and  applause  of 
the  nation,  or  not  at  all ;  and  our  opinion  of  his 
conduct  depends  upon  whether  party  considera- 
tions are  to  be  preferred  to  a  nice  sense  of  minis- 
terial honor." 

As  soon  as  the  national  verdict  was  known, 
Mr.  Gladstone  sought  the  Queen  at  Windsor,  and 
surrendered  an  office  which  for  a  year  or  more 
past  had  offered  him  little  to  compensate  for  its 
burdens.  But  even  such  leisure  and  retirement 
as  release  from  the  cares  of  office  secured  to  him 
did  not  seem  sufficient  for  his  purposes  at  this 
juncture  ;  and,  by  a  step  which  has  been  the  most 
openly  censured  and  the  least  successfully  excused 
of  any  he  has  ever  taken,  Mr.  Gladstone,  just 
before  the  opening  of  the  new  Parliament,  left 
the  Liberal  party  practically  without  a  leader. 

In  one  of  the  speeches  delivered  before  his 
constituents  during  the  campaign,  he  had  inti- 
mated that,  if  the  country  decided  upon  the  dis- 
missal of  the  Liberal  Ministry,  he  should  reserve 
to  himself  the  right  of  limiting  his  future  services 
to  his  party  as  he  might  think  fit  ;  but  the  pre- 
cise significance  of  this  was  not  fully  understood 
until,  on  March  12th,  he  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  Lord  Granville  : 

"  MY  DEAR  GRANVILLE  :  I  have  issued  a  circular  to 
members  of  Parliament  of  the  Liberal  party  on  the  occa- 
tion  of  the  opening  of  Parliamentary  business.  But  I 
feel  it  to  be  necessary  that,  while  discharging  this  duty, 


REACTION  AND  RETIREMENT.  167 

I  should  explain  what  a  circular  could  not  convey  with 
regard  to  my  individual  position  at  the  present  time.  I 
need  not  apologize  for  addressing  these  explanations  to 
you.  Independently  of  other  reasons  for  so  troubling 
you,  it  is  enough  to  observe  that  you  have  very  long 
represented  the  Liberal  party,  and  have  also  acted  on 
behalf  of  the  late  Government,  from  its  commencement 
to  its  close,  in  the  House  of  Lords. 

'.'  For  a  variety  of  reasons  personal  to  myself,  I  could 
not  contemplate  any  unlimited  extension  of  active  politi- 
cal service ;  and  I  am  anxious  that  it  should  be  clearly 
understood  by  those  friends  with  whom  I  have  acted  in 
the  direction  of  affairs,  that  at  my  age  I  must  reserve 
my  entire  freedom  to  divest  myself  of  all  the  responsi- 
bilities of  leadership  at  no  distant  time.  The  need  of 
rest  will  prevent  me  from  giving  more  than  occasional 
attendance  in  the  House  of  Commons  during  the  present 
session. 

"  I  should  be  desirous,  shortly  before  the  commence- 
ment of  the  session  of  1875,  to  consider  whether  there 
would  be  advantage  in  my  placing  my  services  for  a  time 
at  the  disposal  of  the  Liberal  party,  or  whether  I  should 
then  claim  exemption  from  the  duties  I  have  hitherto 
discharged.  If,  however,  there  should  be  reasonable 
ground  for  believing  that,  instead  of  the  course  which  I 
have  sketched,  it  would  be  preferable,  in  the  view  of  the 
party  generally,  for  me  to  assume  at  once  the  place  of  an 
independent  member,  I  should  willingly  adopt  the  latter 
alternative.  But  I  shall  retain  all  that  desire  I  have 
hitherto  felt  for  the  welfare  of  the  party,  and,  if  the 
gentlemen  composing  it  should  think  fit  either  to  choose 
a  leader  or  make  provision  ad  interim,  with  a  view  to 
the  convenience  of  the  present  year,  the  person  desig- 


168  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

nated  would,  of  course,  command  from  me  any  assistance 
which  he  might  find  occasion  to  seek,  and  which  it  might 
be  in  my  power  to  render." 

As  a  matter  of  course,  the  Liberal  party  had 
no  alternative  but  to  accept  Mr.  Gladstone's  offer, 
and  avail  themselves  of  his  services  as  long  as 
possible  ;  and,  accordingly,  during  the  session  of 
1874,  he  conscientiously  performed  the  duties  of 
leader  of  the  Opposition.  It  was  observed,  how- 
ever, that,  though  he  made  important  speeches  on 
the  bill  for  the  Regulation  of  Public  Worship  and 
on  educational  topics,  he  seldom  entered  upon 
Parliamentary  questions  with  anything  like  his 
old  spirit  and  vigor  ;  and  few,  perhaps,  were  sur- 
prised when,  in  January,  1875,  he  addressed  a 
second  letter  to  Lord  Granville,  announcing  his 
resignation  in  decisive  and  unmistakable  terms  : 

"The  time  has,  I  think,  arrived,"  he  said,  "  when  I 
onght  to  revert  to  the  subject  of  the  letter  which  I  ad- 
dressed to  you  on  March  12th.  Before  determining 
whether  I  should  offer  to  assume  a  charge  which  might 
extend  over  a  length  of  time,  I  have  reviewed,  with  all 
the  care  in  my  power,  a  number  of  considerations,  both 
public  and  private,  of  which  a  portion,  and  these  not  by 
any  means  insignificant,  were. not  in  existence  at  the  date 
of  that  letter.  The  result  has  been  that  I  see  no  public 
advantage  in  my  continuing  to  act  as  the  leader  of  the 
Liberal  party  ;  and  that,  at  the  age  of  sixty-five,  and  after 
forty-two  years  of  a  laborious  public  life,  I  think  myself 
entitled  to  retire  on  the  present  opportunity.  This  retire- 


REACTION   AND   RETIREMENT.  169 

merit  is  dictated  to  me  by  my  personal  views  as  to  the 
best  method  of  spending  the  closing  years  of  my  life.  I 
need  hardly  say  that  my  conduct  in  Parliament  will  con- 
tinue to  be  governed  by  the  principles  on  which  I  have 
heretofore  acted;  and,  whatever  arrangements  may  be 
made  for  the  treatment  of  general  business,  and  for  the 
advantage  or  convenience  of  the  Liberal  party,  they  will 
have  my  cordial  support.  I  should,  perhaps,  add  that  I 
am  at  present,  and  mean  for  a  short  time  to  be,  engaged 
on  a  special  matter,  which  occupies  me  closely." 

"Such  a  resignation  on  the  part  of  a  great  po- 
litical chief,"  says  Mr.  Smith,  "was  without  pre- 
cedent ;  but,  while  many  lamented  the  step,  none 
challenged  the  right  of  this  eminent  statesman  to 
retire  after  forty-two  years  of  active  service.  Even 
with  a  less  brilliant  catalogue  of  legislative  achieve- 
ments than  his,  it  was  surely  within  his  own  le- 
gitimate province  to  say  when  the  time  had  come 
for  putting  off  the  political  armor,  and  yielding 
the  command  of  the  Liberal  forces  into  other 
hands.  At  the  same  time,  the  announcement 
came  with  so  great  a  surprise  upon  the  country 
that  for  the  moment  it  could  scarcely  be  realized. 
That  he  who  for  a  considerable  period  had  been 
the  life  and  soul  of  one  of  the  two  great  political 
parties  in  the  state  should  thus  suddenly  relinquish 
its  control,  carried  something  like  consternation 
into  the  ranks  of  those  who  were  anxiously  look- 
ing for  the  consolidation  of  the  Liberal  party. 
Efforts  were  made  to  induce  Mr.  Gladstone  to  re- 


170  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

consider  his  decision,  but  in  vain  ;  and,  in  formally 
acknowledging  the  receipt  of  the  ex-Premier's 
letter,  Earl  Granville  wrote  as  follows  :  '  I  have 
communicated  to  you  in  detail  the  reasons  which 
made  me  profoundly  regret  and  deprecate  the  con- 
clusion at  which  you  have  arrived.  Your  late 
colleagues  share  these  feelings  to  the  fullest  extent, 
and  have  regretted  the  failure  of  their  endeavor  to 
persuade  you  to  come  to  a  different  decision.  We 
have  no  doubt  that  the  Liberal  party,  both  in  and 
out  of  Parliament,  will  feel  as  we  do  on  the  sub- 
ject. The  observations  we  have  addressed  to  you 
are  prompted  by  considerations  of  public  advan- 
tage for  the  future,  and  not  merely  by  our  sense 
of  your  great  services,  and  our  sentiments  of  per- 
sonal admiration  and  attachment.' 

"  The  daily  and  weekly  press,  both  metropol- 
itan and  provincial,  were  all  but  unanimous  in 
their  expressions  of  sympathy  and  regret,  and  in 
recognizing  in  Mr.  Gladstone's  retirement  a  loss 
to  the  nation.  Many  journals  expressed  a  hope 
that  the  resignation  was  the  result  of  a  temporary 
depression,  rather  than  of  a  lasting  mood  of 
mind  ;  and,  while  assuming  that  there  would  be. 
many  occasions  when  his  mind  would  revert  to 
Westminster,  they  trusted  also  that  a  sense  of  duty 
to  the  nation  would  bring  him  back  at  recurrent 
intervals  to  the  scene  of  so  many  triumphs." 

His  former  colleagues  and  party  associates  vied 
with  each  other  in  the  cordialitv  of  their  tributes 


REACTION  AND  RETIREMENT.  171 

to  the  retiring  leader.  Mr.  Bright,  addressing  his 
constituents  at  Birmingham,  said — in  allusion  to 
the  few  disparaging  comments  that  had  been  made 
— "  I  will  say  nothing  in  answer  to  the  ungener- 
ous things  that  have  been  said  and  done.  Of  this 
I  am  well  aware — that  Mr.  Gladstone,  like  an  old 
and  a  noble  Roman,  can  be  content  with  deserving 
the  praises  of  his  country,  even  though  some  of 
his  countrymen  should  deny  them  to  him."  And 
Mr.  Forster,  in  a  speech  delivered  at  the  Bradford 
Chamber  of  Commerce,  remarked  that,  although 
every  one  knew  Mr.  Gladstone's  power  and  elo- 
quence, it  was  only  those  who  had  been  brought 
into  close  personal  contact  with  him  who  knew 
what  an  example  he  had  set  in  the  absolute  sin- 
cerity, the  absolute  want  of  selfishness  or  self- 
seeking,  in  the  principles  and  the  manner  in  which 
he  had  conducted  political  life.  "  It  is  difficult," 
he  said,  "  for  any  one  who  has  not  been  brought 
into  close  contact  with  him,  and  seen  him  under 
occasions  of  difficulty  such  as  those  in  which  a 
colleague  has  seen  him — occasions,  I  must  say,  not 
only  of  difficulty,  but  even  of  temptation — it  is 
difficult  for  any  one  who  has  not  been  in  that  po- 
sition thoroughly  to  realize  what  an  example  of 
purity,  of  self-sacrifice,  and  of  disinterestedness 
be  has  set  to  politicians  throughout  the  country, 
and  to  what  an  extent  he,  as  far  as  he  has  acted, 
has  raised  the  tone  of  political  life." 

Speaking  of  the  practical  outcome  of  the  resig- 


172  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

nation,  Mr.  Lucy  says  :  "  This  was  an  arrangement 
not  altogether  hopeless,  if  Mr.  Gladstone  had  car- 
ried out  in  the  letter  and  in  the  spirit  the  intention 
of  withdrawing  from  active  participation  in  pol- 
itics, announced  in  his  epistle  to  Earl  Granville. 
But  his  temperament  was  not  suited  for  the  ex- 
hibition of  silent  yet  not  sullen  endurance  which 
he  had  extolled  in  the  monuments  of  ancient  Sicily. 
Even  in  the  first  session  of  the  new  Parliament  he 
succeeded  in  introducing  a  disturbing  feature  in 
political  warfare.  No  one  knew  exactly  at  what 
hour,  or  in  respect  of  what  political  bill,  he  might 
not  suddenly  appear — as  he  did  in  respect  of  the 
Public  "Worship  bill — and  upset  all  calculation 
and  all  arrangement.  This  habit  grew  in  inten- 
sity in  the  following  session,  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
came  to  be  more  terrible  to  his  political  friends 
than  to  the  party  opposite.  It  was  all  very  well 
for  the  Liberals  to  meet  in  the  smoke-room  of  the 
Keform  Club,  and  elect  Lord  Hartington  leader, 
vice  Mr.  Gladstone  retired  from  politics.  It  would 
have  been  just  as  efficacious  for  the  solar  system 
to  meet  and  elect  the  moon  to  rule  by  day,  vice 
the  sun  resigned.  Mr.  Gladstone's  erratic  appear- 
ances in  the  political  firmament  were  sufficient 
temporarily  to  dispose  of  the  titular  Leader  of  the 
Liberals,  and  to  set  the  whole  system  once  more 
revolving  round  himself." 

No  sooner  was  he  definitively  released  from  the 
cares  and  responsibilities  of  political  leadership 


REACTION  AND   RETIREMENT.  173 

than  Mr.  Gladstone  turned  with  zest  to  those 
literary  activities  which  had  only  been  in  abey- 
ance ;  and,  as  on  a  previous  occasion,  theology 
furnished  him  with  a  theme.  Reverting,  during 
the  recess  of  1874,  to  an  ecclesiastical  controversy 
which  had  been  initiated  some  months  before  in 
the  House  of  Commons  (in  a  debate  on  the  Pub- 
lic Worship  bill),  he  published  an  article  in  the 
"  Contemporary  Review,"  entitled  "  What  is  Ritu- 
alism ?  "  in  which  he  gave  this  general  definition 
of  Ritualism  :  "  It  is  unwise,  undisciplined  reac- 
tion from  poverty,  from  coldness,  from  barrenness, 
from  nakedness  ;  it  is  overlaying  purpose  with  ad- 
ventitious and  obstructive  incumbrance ;  it  is 
departure  from  measure  and  from  harmony  in  the 
annexation  of  appearance  to  substance,  of  the  out- 
ward to  the  inward  ;  it  is  the  caricature  of  the 
beautiful ;  it  is  the  conversion  of  help  into  hin- 
drances ;  it  is  the  attempted  substitution  of  the 
secondary  for  the  primary  aim,  and  the  real  failure 
and  paralysis  of  both." 

This  essay  provoked  many  criticisms,  to  which, 
in  the  following  year,  Mr.  Gladstone  published  a 
general  reply,  entitled  "Is  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land Worth  Preserving?" — a  question  which  he 
answered  in  the  affirmative.  But  the  most  im- 
portant outcome  of  the  essay  was  an  indirect  one. 
In  his  first  article  was  a  passage  which  roused  the 
indignation  of  the  Roman  Catholics  to  the  high- 
est pitch  ;  and,  in  order  to  justify  the  assertions 


474  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

which  it  contained,  Mr.  Gladstone  wrote  a  pam- 
phlet on  "The  Vatican  Decrees  in  their  Bearing 
on  Civil  Allegiance  :  A  Political  Expostulation." 
The  propositions  which  occasioned  the  pamphlet, 
and  which  he  now  defended,  were  as  follows  : 
"  I.  That  Rome  has  substituted  for  the  proud 
boast  of  semper  eadem  a  policy  of  violence  and 
change  in  faith.  II.  That  she  has  refurbished 
and  paraded  anew  every  rusty  tool  she  was  fondly 
thought  to  have  disused.  III.  That  no  one  can 
now  become  her  convert  without  renouncing  his 
moral  and  mental  freedom,  and  placing  his  civil 
loyalty  and  duty  at  the  mercy  of  another.  IV. 
That  Borne  has  equally  repudiated  modern  thought 
and  ancient  history." 

The  pamphlet  was  a  very  able  one,  and  it 
created  an  excitement  and  attained  a  success  such 
as  few  pamphlets,  or  indeed  works  of  any  kind, 
have  ever  attained.  Mr.  Smith  tells  us  that  in 
the  course  of  a  few  weeks  no  fewer  than  120,000 
copies  of  it  were  sold ;  and  replies  innumerable 
(including  one  from  Dr.  Newman)  appeared, 
some  endorsing  its  views  and  some  endeavoring  to 
confute  them.  Three  months  after  the  appear- 
ance of  his  first  pamphlet,  Mr.  Gladstone  issued 
a  second,  entitled  "Vaticanism:  An  Answer  to 
Reproofs  and  Replies."  In  it  he  reiterated  and 
fortified  his  original  charges,  and  urged  that 
"the  Vatican  Decrees  do,  in  the  strictest  sense, 
establish  for  the  Pope  a  supreme  command  over 


REACTION  AND  RETIREMENT.  175 

loyalty  and  civil  duty."  In  addition  to  these  dis- 
sertations on  the  subject  of  Vaticanism,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone contributed  a  vigorous  and  searching  crit- 
icism upon  the  "Speeches  of  Pope  Pius  IX"  to 
the  "  Quarterly  Review  "  for  January,  1875. 

Religious  controversy  is,  in  general,  perhaps, 
the  most  barren  field  in  which  an  able  man  can 
exercise  his  intellect ;  but  Mr.  Gladstone's  Vatican 
pamphlets  really  did  good  service  in  making 
known  the  nature  and  possible  political  bearings 
of  the  Papal  pretensions.  Another  good  result 
whicji  they  accomplished  was  in  demonstrating 
(by  means  of  the  controversy  that  arose  over 
them)  that  thera  is  a  want  of  harmony  among 
the  members  of  the  Romish  Church  themselves 
on  the  subject  of  the  Vatican  Decrees.  Even 
Cardinal  Newman — whom  Mr.  Gladstone  de- 
scribes as  "the  first  living  theologian  now  within 
the  Roman  Catholic  Communion" — interprets 
them  in  a  way  which  can  hardly  be  more  satis- 
factory to  the  Ultramontanes  than  their  deliber- 
ate rejection  would  be. 


176  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

XIV. 
THE   EASTERN  QUESTION. 

TWICE  during  Mr.  Gladstone's  career  as  a 
statesman,  the  Eastern  Question — that  "  skeleton 
in  the  closet  of  Europe,"  as  it  has  been  truly  called 
— has  come  to  the  front,  and  seemed  to  call  for  im- 
mediate solution.  The  first  time  that  it  came  up, 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  a  member  of  the  Government, 
and  was  found  defending  "British  interests"  by 
aiding  the  Turks  against  Eussian  aggression.  The 
second  time  that  it  came  up,  he  assailed  Mr. 
Disraeli's  Ministry  with  unexampled  fierceness 
and  persistency,  because  they  seemed  disposed  to 
take  the  same  view  of  "  British  interests  "  that  had 
instigated  and  justified  the  Crimean  War.  For 
this  apparent  inconsistency,  he  has  himself  been 
bitterly  and  relentlessly  criticised  ;  and  his  course 
in  the  later  emergency  has  been  ascribed  to  mere 
personal  animosity  toward  Lord  Beaconsfield. 
His  own  explanation  is,  that  the  two  cases,  in- 
stead of  being  identical,  as  is  commonly  assumed, 
were,  in  fact,  completely  contrasted  with  each 
other — Turkey  being  at  the  later  period  the  "  vi- 
olater  of  the  public  law  of  Europe,"  as  Eussia  had 
been  at  the  earlier  period.* 

*For  a  more  detailed  account  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
defense,  see  the  closing  pages  of  the  chapter  on  the 
Crimean  War. 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION.  177 

In  making  this  explanation,  Mr.  Gladstone  is 
no  doubt  perfectly  sincere,  and  his  facts  and  ar- 
guments in  support  of  it  are  not  without  cogency  ; 
but  the  real  truth  probably  is  that,  whereas  at  the 
time  of  the  .Crimean  War  the  English  Govern- 
ment and  people  were  completely  deceived  as  to 
the  real  nature  and  meaning  of  Turkish  rule,  the 
eyes  of  most  of  them  had  been  opened  before  the 
next  occasion  for  championing  and  supporting  it 
had  come  round.  Nor  is  it  any  discredit  to  a 
statesman  that  his  opinions  and  policy  should  be 
changed  by  such  revelations  as  the  Turks  made 
of  themselves  during  1875  and  1876.  After  all, 
a  statesman  is  not  exempt  from  the  common  ob- 
ligations and  sentiments  of  humanity ;  and  to 
prefer  the  emancipation  of  an  oppressed  and  suffer- 
ing people  to  a  selfish  conception  of  one's  own  na- 
tional interests  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  generous  and 
a  noble  trait. 

After  the  Crimean  War  the  Eastern  Question 
remained  in  a  state  of  quiescence  for  twenty 
years,  but  it  again  became  urgent  when,  in  July, 

1875,  an  insurrection  broke  out  in  Herzegovina, 
where  the  oppression  of  the  Christian  peasantry 
by  Mohammedan  landlords,  though  long  endured, 
had  at  length  become  intolerable.     In  January, 

1876,  the  insurgents  gained  a  victory  over  the 
Turks  ;  and  a  few  days  later  Count  Andrassy,  the 
Austrian  Premier,  drew  up  a  Note  containing  a 
Bcheme  of  reforms  in  behalf  of  the  Christian  pop- 

12 


178  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

ulations  of  Turkey,  which,  being  communicated 
to  the  Porte  by  the  Austrian,  Kussian,  and  Ger- 
man ambassadors,  was  accepted  by  the  Sultan's 
Government.  This  seemed  to  promise  a  peaceful 
solution  of  the  difficulties ;  but,  early  in  May, 
another  insurrection  broke  out  in  Bulgaria,  and 
the  Turks  concluded  that  the  time  had  come  for 
applying  their  characteristic  methods  of  dealing 
with  such  troubles.  }Vhat  these  methods  were 
was  shown  a  few  days  later  when  the  fearful 
tragedy  of  Batak  sent  a  thrill  of  horror  through- 
out Europe.  Mr.  Baring,  the  English  consul, 
has  furnished  us  a  vivid  and  authoritative  account 
of  this  tragedy.  On  learning  of  the  approach 
of  the  Turks,  a  large  number  of  the  people  of 
Batak,  probably  about  1,000  or  1,200,  took  refuge 
in  the  church  and  churchyard.  The  church  was  a 
solid  building,  and  resisted  all  attempts  by  the 
Bashi-Bazouks  to  burn  it  from  the  outside.  They 
consequently  fired  into  the  windows,  and,  getting 
upon  the  roof,  tore  off  the  tiles,  and  threw  pieces 
of  burning  wood  and  rags  dipped  in  petroleum 
among  the  mass  of  unhappy  human  beings  in- 
side. At  last  the  door  was  forced  in,  the  slaughter 
completed,  and  the  inside  of  the  church  burned. 
Hardly  any  one — man,  woman,  or  child — escaped 
out  of  the  fatal  walls ;  and  for  weeks  afterward 
the  scene  beggared  description.  The  massacre  at 
Batak  was  the  most  heinous  crime  that  has 
stained  the  annals  of  the  present  century  ;  yet,  for 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION.  179 

his  services  in  perpetrating  it,  the  Turkish  leader, 
Achmet  Agha,  received  from  the  Sultan  the 
much-coveted  Order  of  the  Medjidie.  Nor  was 
this  all.  Mr.  Baring,  after  careful  investigation, 
estimated  that  no  fewer  than  12,000  persons  had 
perished  in  the  sandjak  of  Philippopolis.  At 
least,  sixty  villages  had  been  destroyed  ;  and  a 
district  once  the  most  fertile  in  the  empire  had 
been  reduced  to  a  desert.  At  one  place,  forty 
young  girls  were  shut  up  in  a  straw  loft  and 
burned  ;  and  outrages  of  the  most  revolting  de- 
scription were  committed  upon  hundreds  of  un- 
fortunate captives. 

Before  the  news  of  these  atrocities  reached 
England,  renewed  efforts  had  been  made  to  effect 
a  peaceable  adjustment.  On  the  llth  of  May,  the 
Emperor  of  Russia,  accompanied  by  Prince  Gort- 
schakoff,  arrived  at  Berlin,  to  confer  with  the 
Emperor  William,  Prince  Bismarck,  and  Count 
Andrassy,  on  the  state  of  affairs  ;  and  the  out- 
come of  this  conference  was  the  famous  Berlin 
Memorandum,  containing  a  programme  of  reforms 
which  were  to  be  urged  upon  Turkey  by  the 
united  voice  of  Europe.  England  alone  refused 
to  sign  this  Memorandum,  and  shortly  afterward 
the  British  fleet  in  the  Mediterranean  was  ordered 
to  Besika  Bay — the  effect  of  which  was  to  break 
the  European  concert  and  encourage  the  Turks 
in  their  attitude  of  resistance. 

This  occurred  during  the  latter  part  of  May, 


180  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

and  early  in  June  the  revelations  respecting  the 
massacres  in  Bulgaria  reached  England,  arousing 
a  passionate  indignation  in  the  minds  of  every 
one,  apparently,  except  Mr.  Disraeli  and  his  col- 
leagues. Mr.  Disraeli  expressed  the  belief  .that 
the  outrages  were  exaggerated,  and  jocularly  de- 
clared that,  as  to  the  torture  of  impalement 
(which  had  caused  universal  disgust  and  anger), 
he  had  only  to  remark  that  an  Oriental  people 
generally  terminated  their  connection  with  cul- 
prits in  a  more  expeditious  manner !  It  was  in 
a  debate  on  the  policy  of  the  Government  that 
Mr.  Disraeli  made  his  last  speech  in  the  House 
of  Commons  (August  11,  1876).  On  the  morn- 
ing after  this  speech,  it  was  announced  that  he 
had  been  elevated  to  the  peerage  under  the  title 
of  Earl  of  Beaconsfield. 

In  the  mean  time  events  were  hastening  onward 
in  Southeastern  Europe.  In  June  the  Servians 
and  Montenegrins  had  agreed  to  interfere  in  be- 
half of  the  insurrectionary  Herzegovinians,  and 
the  former  were  engaged  in  a  hopeless  struggle 
against  the  concentrated  might  of  the  Turkish 
Empire.  Russia  was  in  the  midst  of  a  storm  of 
popular  excitement  which  was  sure  to  lead  to  war, 
unless  an  end  were  put  to  the  outrages  upon  the 
Christian  subjects  of  the  Porte ;  and  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, deeming  it  high  time  that  the  voice  of 
England  also  should  be  heard  upon  these  in- 
famous deeds,  published  a  pamphlet,  entitled 


THE  EASTERN   QUESTION.  181 

"Bulgarian  Horrors,  and  the  Question  of  the 
East."  In  it  he  urged  that  England  should  aim 
at  the  accomplishment  of  three  great  objects,  in 
addition  to  the  termination  of  the  war,  viz.,  1. 
To  put  a  stop  to  the  anarchical  misrule,  the 
plundering,  the  murdering,  which  still  desolated 
Bulgaria.  2.  To  make  effectual  provision  against 
the  recurrence  of  the  outrages  recently  per- 
petrated under  the  sanction  of  the  Ottoman 
Government  by  excluding  its  administrative  ac- 
tion for  the  future,  not  only  from  Bosnia  and  the 
Herzegovina,  but  also,  and  above  all,  from  Bul- 
garia. 3.  To  redeem  by  such  measures  the  honor 
of  the  British  name,  which  in  the  deplorable  events 
of  the  year  had  been  more  gravely  compromised 
than  he  had  known  it  tc  be  at  any  former  period. 
"  Let  us  insist,"  he  said,  "  that  our  Government, 
which  has  been  working  in  one  direction,  shall 
work  in  the  other,,  and  shall  apply  all  its  vigor  to 
concur  with  the  other  States  of  Europe  in  obtain- 
ing the  extinction  of  the  Turkish  executive 
power  in  Bulgaria.  Let  the  Turks  now  cany 
away  their  abuses  in  the  only  possible  manner, 
namely,  by  carrying  off  themselves.  Their  Zap- 
tiehs  and  their  Mudirs,  their  Bimbashis  and  their 
Yuzbachis,  their  Kaimakams  and  their  Pashas, 
one  and  all,  bag  and  baggage,  shall,  I  hope,  clear 
out  from  the  province  they  have  desolated  and 
profaned.  ...  If  it  be  allowable  that  the  execu- 
tive power  of  Turkey  should  renew  at  this  great 


182  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

crisis,  by  permission  or  authority  of  Europe,  the 
charter  of  its  existence  in  Bulgaria,  then  there  is 
not  on  record,  since  the  beginnings  of  political 
society,  a  protest  that  man  has  lodged  against  in- 
tolerable misgovern  merit,  or  a  stroke  he  has  dealt 
at  loathsome  tyranny,  that  ought  not  hencefor- 
ward to  be  branded  as  a  crime." 
•  The  pamphlet  was  published  in  September, 
and  a  few  days  afterward  Mr.  Gladstone  followed 
it  up  by  a  great  speech  to  his  constituents  on 
Blackheath.  He  was  received  with  immense  en- 
thusiasm, and  at  various  points  in  his  address 
the  audience  were  literally  carried  away  by  the 
strength  of  their  emotions.  Referring  to  the 
massacre  at  Glencoe,  the  atrocities  of  Badajoz, 
the  revolt  of  Cephalonia,  and  the  more  recent 
revolt  in  Jamaica,  he  said:  "To  compare  these 
proceedings  to  what  we  are  now  dealing  with  is 
an  insult  to  the  common  sense  of  Europe.  They 
may  constitute  a  dark  page  in  British  history,  but, 
if  you  could  concentrate  the  whole  of  that  page, 
or  every  one  of  them,  into  a  single  point  and  a 
single  spot,  it  would  not  be  worthy  to  appear  upon 
one  of  the  pages  that  will  hereafter  consign  to 
everlasting  infamy  the  proceedings  of  the  Turks 
in  Bulgaria."  With  regard  to  the  policy  to  be 
pursued,  and  the  terms  to  be  offered  to  the  Turk, 
he  would  say  to  the  latter  :  "  You  shall  receive  a 
reasonable  tribute  ;  you  shall  retain  your  titular 
sovereignty  ;  your  empire  shall  not  be  invaded  ; 


THE   EASTERN   QUESTION.  183 

but  never  again  while  the  years  roll  their  course, 
so  far  as  it  is  in  our  power  to  determine,  never 
again  shall  the  hand  of  violence  be  raised  by  you, 
never  again  shall  the  dire  refinements  of  cruelty  be 
devised  by  you  for  the  sake  of  making  mankind 
miserable  in  Bulgaria."  Passing  on  to  the  ques- 
tion how  this  effectual  prevention  was  to  be  secured, 
Mr.  Gladstone  said  it  could  only  be  done  with 
safety  by  the  united  action  of  the  powers  of 
Europe.  The  mind  and  the  heart  of  Europe 
must  be  one  in  this  matter.  The  assent  of  Russia, 
Germany,  Austria,  France,  England,  and  Italy 
was  not  only  important,  but  indispensable,  to  en- 
tire success  and  satisfaction.  Yet  there  were  two 
powers  whose  position  was  such  that  they  stood 
forth  far  before  the  rest  in  authority,  in  the 
means  of  effectually  applying  that  authority,  and 
in  responsibility  upon  this  great  question,  viz., 
England  and  Russia.  Enlarging  still  further  upon 
this  point,  Mr.  Gladstone  observed  : 

"  I  am  far  from  supposing — I  am  not  such  a  dreamer 
as  to  suppose— that  Russia,  more  than  any  other  country, 
is  exempt  from  selfishness  and  ambition.  But  she  has 
also  within  her,  like  other  countries,  the  pulse  of  hu- 
manity, and,  for  my  own  part,  I  believe  it  is  the  pulse  of 
humanity  which  is  now  throbbing  almost  ungovernably 
in  her  people.  Upon  the  concord  and  hearty  coopera- 
tion— not  upon  a  mere  hollow  truce  between  England 
and  Russia,  but  upon  their  concord  and  hearty  cordial 
cooperation — depend  a  good  settlement  of  this  question. 


184  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Their  power  is  immense.  The  power  of  Russia  by  land 
for  acting  upon  these  countries  as  against  Turkey  is  per- 
fectly resistless  ;  the  power  of  England  by  sea  is  scarcely 
less  important  at  this  moment.  For,  I  ask  you,  what  would 
be  the  condition  of  the  Turkish  armies  if  the  British  Ad- 
miral now  in  Besika  Bay  were  to  inform  the  Government 
of  Constantinople  that  from  that  hour,  until  atonement 
had  been  made — until  punishment  had  descended,  until 
justice  had  been  vindicated — not  a  man,  nor  a  ship,  nor 
a  boat  should  cross  the  waters  of  the  Bosphorus,  or  tho 
cloudy  Euxine,  or  the  bright  ^Egean,  to  carry  aid  to  the 
Turkish  troops  ?  " 

This  address  drew  forth  a  reply  from  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  in  the  course  of  which  he  described 
the  conduct  of  his  opponents  as  worse  than  any 
Bulgarian  atrocity  ;  and  the  agitation  thus  begun 
put  a  peremptory  end  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  contem- 
plated retirement  from  politics.  Though  no 
longer  the  titular  leader  of  the  Opposition,  the 
Government  found  in  him  a  sleepless  critic  of 
every  development  of  its  Eastern  policy,  and  both 
in  and  out  of  Parliament  he  threw  himself  into 
the  conflict  with  passionate  ardor  and  enthusiasm. 
No  speeches  that  he  ever  made  are  so  surcharged 
with  feeling  and  intense  fervor  of  conviction  as 
the  long  series  that  he  delivered  against  the  foreign 
policy  of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  Administration. 

That  policy  had  gradually  revealed  itself  as 
one  of  opposition  to  Eussia  and  "moral  support" 
of  Turkey.  On  the  23d  of  December,  1876,  a 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION.  185 

conference  met  at  Constantinople  (with  Lord 
Salisbury  representing  England),  and  drew  up  a 
scheme  of  reform  and  guarantees,  which  was,  in 
January,  1877,  presented  to  the  Porte  as  indicat- 
ing the  views  of  Europe  upon  the  demands  of  the 
situation.  The  scheme  was  a  moderate  one  ;  but 
the  Ottoman  Government,  encouraged  by  the  at- 
titude of  England,  rejected  it  as  "contrary  to 
the  integrity,  independence,  and  dignity  of  the 
empire. " 

Before  the  abortive  result  of  the  conference 
was  known,  a  great  public  meeting,  to  discuss  the 
Eastern  Question,  was  held  at  St.  James's  Hall, 
London  ;  and  Mr.  Gladstone  delivered  an  address, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  expressed  the  hope  that 
the  plenipotentiaries  would  insist  on  the  future 
independence  of  the  provinces,  or,  at  least,  upon 
such  administrative  autonomy  as  would  insure 
them  against  arbitrary  injustice  and  oppression. 
He  declared  this  to  be  not  only  a  worthy  aim,  but 
an  absolute  duty.  "It  is  a  case  of  positive  obli- 
gation, and,  under  the  stringent  pressure  of  that 
obligation,  I  say  that,  if  at  length  long-suffering 
and  long-oppressed  humanity  in  these  provinces 
is  lifting  itself  from  the  ground,  and  beginning 
again  to  contemplate  the  heavens,  it  is  our  busi- 
ness to  assist  the  work.  It  is  our  business  to  ac- 
knowledge the  obligation,  to  take  part  in  the  bur- 
den, and  it  is  our  privilege  to  claim  for  our  count  ry 
a  share  in  the  honor  and  in  the  fame.  This  ac- 


186  WILLIAM   EWAKT   GLADSTONE. 

knowleclgment  of  duty,  this  attempt  to  realize 
the  honor,  is  what  we  at  least  shall  endeavor  to 
obtain  from  the  Government ;  and  with  nothing 
less  than  this  shall  we  who  are  assembled  here 
be,  under  any  circumstances,  persuaded  to  say 
'Content.'"  In  a  speech  delivered  at  this  same 
meeting,  Mr.  Edward  A.  Freeman,  the  historian, 
said,  referring  to  the  doctrine  of  British  interests, 
"  Perish  the  interests  of  England,  perish  our  do- 
minion in  India,  sooner  than  we  should  strike  one 
blow  or  speak  one  word  on  behalf  of  wrong 
against  right."  And  Mr.  Carlyle,  unable  to  at- 
tend, wrote  a  letter,  in  which  he  said  :  "  The  only 
clear  advice  I  have  to  give  is  that  the  unspeakable 
Turk  should  be  immediately  struck  out  of  the 
question,  and  the  country  left  to  honest  European 
guidance,  delaying  which  can  be  profitable  or 
agreeable  only  to  gamblers  on  the  Stock  Exchange, 
but  distressing  and  unprofitable  to  all  other  men." 
On  hearing  of  the  "woeful  failure"  of  the 
Constantinople  Conference,  Mr.  Gladstone  threw 
the  responsibility  for  the  situation  upon  the  Gov- 
ernment, and  continued  to  address  great  public 
meetings  in  opposition  to  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
policy.  For  this  course  he  was  assailed,  when 
Parliament  met  for  the  session  of  1877,  as  "an 
inflammatory  agitator,"  and  in  defending  himself 
said  :  "  Such  is  the  depth  and  strength  of  the 
sentiment  which  has  taken  possession  of  the  mind 
and  heart  of  England  in  reference  to  this  question 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION.  187 

that  I,  in  my  poor  and  feeble  person,  have  felt  it 
almost  impossible  to  avoid  the  manifestation  of 
this  almost  unexampled  national  and  popular 
feeling."  He  concluded  a  wonderfully  powerful 
and  impressive  speech  with  the  following  eloquent 
words  : 

"We  have,  I  think,  the  most  solemn  and  the  greatest 
question  to  determine  that  has  come  before  Parliament 
in  my  time.  It  is  only  under  very  rare  circumstances  that 
such  a  question — the  question  of  the  East— can  be  fully- 
raised,  fully  developed  and  exhibited,  and  fully  brought 
home  to  the  minds  of  men  with  that  force,  with  that 
command,  with  that  absorbing  power,  which  it  ought  to 
exercise  over  them.  In  the  original  entrance  of  the 
Turks  into  Europe,  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  a  turning- 
point  in  human  history.  To  a  great  extent  it  continues 
to  be  the  cardinal  question,  the  question  which  casts  into 
the  shade  every  other  question,  and  the  question  which 
is  now  brought  before  the  mind  of  the  country  far  more 
fully  than  at  any  period  of  our  history,  far  more  fully 
than  even  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean  War,  when  we  were 
pouring  forth  our  blood  and  treasure  in  what  we  thought 
to  be  the  cause  of  justice  and  right.  And  1  endeavored 
to  impress  upon  the  minds  of  my  andience  at  Taunton, 
not  a  blind  prejudice  against  this  man  or  that,  but  a  great 
watchfulness,  and  the  duty  of  great  activity.  It  is  the 
duty  of  every  man  to  feel  that  he  is  bound  for  himself, 
according  to  his  opportunities,  to  examine  what  belongs 
to  this  question,  with  regard  to  which  it  can  never  be 
forgotten  that  we  are  those  who  set  np  the  power  of 
Turkey  in  1854;  that  we  are  those  who  gave  her  the 
strength  which  has  been  exhibited  in  the  Kulgarian  mas- 


188  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

sacres;  that  we  are  those  who  made  the  treaty  arrange- 
ments that  have  secured  her  for  twenty  years  from  almost 
a  single  hour  of  uneasiness  brought  about  by  foreign  in- 
tervention ;  and  that,  therefore,  nothing  can  be  greater 
and  nothing  deeper  than  our  responsibility  in  the  matter. 
It  is  incumbent  upon  us,  one  and  all,  that  we  do  not  allow 
any  consideration,  either  of  party  or  personal  convenience, 
to  prevent  us  from  endeavoring  to  the  best  of  our  ability 
to  discharge  this  great  duty,  that  now,  at  length,  in  the 
East,  has  sprung  up ;  and  that  in  the  midst  of  this  great 
opportunity,  when  nil  Europe  has  been  called  to  collective 
action,  and  when  something  like  European  concert  has 
been  established— when  we  learn  the  deep  human  inter- 
ests that  are  involved  in  every  stage  of  the  question — 
as  far  as  England  at  least  is  concerned,  every  Englishman 
should  strive  to  the  utmost  of  his  might  that  justice  shall 
be  done."  . 

On  the  24th  of  April,  1877,  all  efforts  at  adjust- 
ment having  failed,  Russia  declared  war  against 
Turkey  ;  and  on  the  1st  of  May  England,  France, 
and  Italy  issued  proclamations  enjoining  strict 
neutrality  in  the  impending  conflict.  On  the  7th 
of  May  Mr.  Gladstone  submitted  to  the  House  a 
series  of  resolutions,  urging  that  "the  influence 
of  the  British  Crown  may  be  addressed  to  the  pro- 
moting the  concert  of  the  European  Powers  in  ex- 
acting from  the  Ottoman  Porte,  by  their  united 
authority,  such  changes  in  the  government  of 
Turkey  as  they  may  deem  to  be  necessary  for  the 
purposes  of  humanity  and  justice,  for  effectual 
defense  against  intrigue,  and  for  the  peace  of  the 


THE   EASTERN   QUESTION.  189 

Tvorld."  In  his  speech  supporting  the  resolutions 
he  gave  a  comprehensive  survey  of  the  whole  ques- 
tion of  the  East,  and  toward  the  end  asked  wheth- 
er, with  regard  to  the  great  battle  of  freedom 
against  oppression  then  going  on,  the  people  of 
England  could  lay  their  hands  upon  their  hearts, 
and  in  the  face  of  God  and  man  say,  "  We  have 
well  and  sufficiently  performed  our  part  ?  "  Then 
came  this  noble  peroration  : 

"  Sir,  there  were  other  days  when  England  was  the 
hope  of  freedom.  Wherever  in  the  world  a  high  aspira- 
tion was  entertained  or  a  nohle  blow  was  struck,  it  was 
to  England  that  the  eyes  of  the  oppressed  were  always 
turned— to  this  favorite,  this  darling  home  of  so  much 
privilege  and  so  much  happiness,  where  the  people  that 
had  built  up  a  noble  edifice  for  themselves  would,  it  was 
well  known,  be  ready  to  do  what  in  them  lay  to  secure 
the  benefit  of  the  same  inestimable  boon  for  others.  You 
talk  to  mo  of  the  established  tradition  and  policy  in  re- 
gard to  Turkey.  I  appeal  to  an  established  tradition, 
older,  wider,  nobler  far— a  tradition  not  which  disregards 
British  interests,  but  which  teaches  you  to  seek  the  pro- 
motion of  these  interests  in  obeying  the  dictates  of  honor 
and  justice.  And,  sir,  what  is  to  be  the  end  of  this  ?  Are 
we  to  dress  up  the  fantastic  ideas  some  people  entertain 
about  this  policy  and  that  policy  in  the  garb  of  British 
interests,  and  then,  with  a  new  and  base  idolatry,  fall 
down  and  worship  them  ?  Or  are  we  to  look,  not  at  the 
sentiment,  but  at  the  hard  facts  of  the  case  which  Lord 
Derby  told  us  fifteen  years  ago — viz.,  that  it  is  the  popu- 
lations of  those  countries  that  will  ultimately  possess 


190  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

them — that  will  ultimately  determine  their  abiding  con- 
dition? It  is  to  this  fact,  this  law,  that  we  should  look. 
There  is  now  before  the  world  a  glorious  prize.  A  por- 
tion of  those  unhappy  people  are  still  as  yet  making  an 
effort  to  retrieve  what  they  have  lost  so  long,  but  have 
not  ceased  to  love  and  to  desire.  I  speak  of  those  in 
Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  Another  portion — a  band  of 
heroes  such  as  the  world  has  rarely  seen — stand  on  the 
rocks  of  Montenegro,  and  are  ready  now,  as  they  have 
ever  been  during  the  four  hundred  years  of  their  exile 
from  their  fertile  plains,  to  sweep  down  from  their  fast- 
nesses, and  meet  the  Turks  at  any  odds  for  the  reestab- 
lishment  of  justice  and  of  peace  in  those  countries. 
Another  portion  still,  the  5,000,000  of  Bulgarians,  cowed 
and  beaten  down  to  the  ground,  hardly  venturing  to  look 
upward,  even  to  their  Father  in  Heaven,  have  extended 
their  hands  to  you ;  they  have  sent  you  their  petition, 
they  have  prayed  for  your  help  and  protection.  They 
have  told  you  that  they  do  not  seek  alliance  with  Russia 
or  with  any  foreign  Power,  but  that  they  seek  to  be  de- 
livered from  an  intolerable  burden  of  woe  and  shame. 
That  burden  of  woe  and  shame — the  greatest  that  exists 
on  God's  earth — is  one  that  we  thought  united  Europe 
was  about  to  remove,  but  to  removing  which,  for  the 
present,  you  seem  to  have  no  efficacious  means  of  offering 
even  the  smallest  practical  contribution.  But,  sir,  the 
removal  of  that  load  of  woe  and  shame  is  a  great  and 
noble  prize.  It  is  a  prize  well  worth  competing  for.  It 
is  not  yet  too  late  to  try  to  win  it.  I  believe  there  are 
men  in  the  Cabinet  who  would  try  to  win  it  if  they  were 
free  to  act  on  their  own  beliefs  and  aspirations.  It  is  not 
yet  too  late,  I  say,  to  become  competitors  for  that  prize, 
but  be  assured  that,  whether  you  mean  to  claim  for  your- 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION.  191 

selves  even  a  single  leaf  in  that  immortal  chaplet  of  re- 
nown, which  will  be  the  reward  of  true  labor  in  that 
cause,  or  whether  you  turn  your  backs  upon  that  cause 
and  upon  your  own  duty,  I  believe  for  one  that  the  knell 
of  Turkish  tyranny  in  these  provinces  has  sounded.  So 
far  as  human  eye  can  judge,  it  is  about  to  be  destroyed. 
The  destruction  may  not  come  in  the  way  or  by  the 
means  that  we  should  choose ;  but,  come  this  boon  from 
what  hands  it  may,  it  will  be  a  noble  boon,  and  as  a  noble 
boon  will  gladly  be  accepted  by  Christendom  and  the 
world." 

In  closing  the  debate,  which  lasted  five  days, 
Mr.  Gladstone  again  said  : 

"  We  are  engaged  in  a  continuous  effort ;  we  roll  the 
stone  of  Sisyphus  against  the  slope,  and  the  moment  the 
hand  shall  be  withdrawn,  down  it  will  begin  to  run. 
However,  the  time  is  short ;  the  sands  of  the  hour-glass 
are  running  out.  The  longer  you  delay,  the  less  in  all 
likelihood  you  will  be  able  to  save  from  the  wreck  of  the 
integrity  and  independence  of  the  Turkish  Empire.  If  Rus- 
sia should  fail,  her  failure  would  be  a  disaster  to  mankind, 
and  the  condition  of  the  suffering  races,  for  whom  we  are 
supposed  to  have  labored,  will  be  worse  thnn  it  was  be- 
fore. If  she  succeeds,  and  if  her  conduct  be  honorable, 
nay,  even  if  it  be  but  tolerably  prudent,  the  performance 
of  the  work  she  has  in  hand  will,  notwithstanding  all 
your  jealousies  and  all  your  reproaches,  secure  for  her  an 
undying  fame.  When  that  work  shall  be  accomplished, 
though  it  be  not  in  the  way  and  by  the  means  I  would 
have  chosen,  as  an  Englishman  I  shall  hide  my  head,  but 
as  a  man  I  shall  rejoice.  Nevertheless,  to  my  latest  day 


192  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

I  will  exclaim,  Would  God  that  in  this  crisis  the  voice 
of  the  nation  had  been  suffered  to  prevail !  Would  God 
that  in  this  great,  this  holy  deed,  England  had  not  been 
refused  her  share  !  " 

But  neither  argument  nor  eloquence  could 
make  any  impression  upon  the  compact  phalanx 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield's  supporters.  The  resolu- 
tions were  rejected  by  a  vote  of  354  to  223.  And 
all  through  the  long  contest  the  Government 
secured  for  its  policy  the  support  of  similar  Par- 
liamentary majorities. 

Meanwhile,  the  Russo-Turkish  War  had  begun, 
and  was  carried  forward  to  the  result  which  is  well 
known  to  all.  By  the  end  of  1877 — in  spite  of  the 
bravery  of  Osman  Pasha  and  the  incompetence  of 
the  Russian  generals — Turkey  was  prostrate  before 
her  conqueror,  and  on  January  23,  1878,  the 
Treaty  of  San  Stefano  was  signed. 

A  week  afterward,  on  the  30th  of  January, 
Mr.  Gladstone  delivered  a  speech  at  Oxford,  in 
which  he  strongly  condemned  the  sending  of  the 
British  fleet  to  the  Dardanelles.  He  was  afraid  it 
would  be  found  that  it  was  a  breach  of  European 
law.  He  had  been  accused  of  being  an  agitator, 
and  with  regard  to  the  last  eighteen  months  that 
might  be  said  to  be  true.  His  purpose,  had  been, 
to  the  best  of  his  power,  day  and  night,  week  by 
week,  month  by  month,  to  counterwork  what  he 
believed  to  be  the  purposes  of  Lord  Beaconsfield. 
It  was  in  replying  to  this  and  other  speeches  of  his 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION.  193 

rival  that  Lord  Beaconsfield  gave  the  celebrated 
description  of  Mr.  Gladstone  as  "a  sophistical 
rhetorician,  inebriated  with  the  exuberance  of  his 
own  verbosity,  and  gifted  with  an  egotistical  imag- 
ination that  can  at  all  times  command  an  inter- 
minable and  inconsistent  series  of  arguments  to 
malign  his  opponents  and  to  glorify  himself." 

The  Treaty  of  San  Stefano,  far  from  restoring 
the  European  concert,  seemed  likely  for  a  time  to 
kindle  the  flames  of  a  general  war.  England  re- 
garded it  as  oppressive,  and  demanded  that  it 
should  be  submitted  for  revision  to  a  general 
congress  of  the  Great  Powers  to  assemble  at  Ber- 
lin ;  and  in  this  demand  she  was  supported  by 
Austria,  Russia  at  first  refused  to  submit  the 
entire  treaty,  but,  under  a  secret  agreement  with 
Lord  Salisbury  that  its  substantial  results  should 
not  be  disturbed,  at  length  conceded  the  point. 
The  Congress  met  on  the  30th  of  June,  the  Eng- 
lish plenipotentiaries  being  the  Earl  of  Beacons- 
field  and  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury.  One  month 
later  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  was  signed  ;  and  Lord 
Beaconsfield  returned  to  England,  bringing  the 
phrase  "peace  with  honor"  and  a  secret  Anglo- 
Turkish  convention  by  which  England  obtained 
Cyprus  as  a  military  station  and  bound  herself  to 
defend  the  Turkish  possessions  in  Asia  from  all 
further  aggression. 

Shortly  before  the  close  of  the  session  a  great 
debate  arose  in  the  House  of  Commons,  extending 
13 


194  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

over  the  whole  range  of  Eastern  affairs  and  the 
recent  treaties.  In  the  course  of  his  speech  on 
the  occasion,  Mr.  Gladstone  said  that,  taking  the 
whole  of  the  provisions  of  the  Berlin  treaty 
together,  he  thankfully  and  joyfully  acknowledged 
that  great  results  had  been  achieved  in  the  dimi- 
nution of  human  misery,  and  toward  the  estab- 
lishment of  human  happiness  and  prosperity  in 
the  East.  Yet  he  could  hot  shut  his  eyes  to  the 
fact  that  the  Sclavs,  looking  to  Kussia,  had  been 
freed  ;  while  the  Greeks,  looking  to  England,  re- 
mained with  all  their  aspirations  unsatisfied. 
Discussing  the  conduct  of  the  British  plenipoten- 
tiaries at  the  Congress,  he  found  that,  as  a  general 
rule,  they  took  the  side  opposed  to  that  of  free- 
dom : 

"  I  say,  sir,  that  in  this  Congress  of  the  Great  Powers 
the  voice  of  England  has  not  been  heard  in  unison  with 
the  institutions,  the  history,  and  the  character  of  Eng- 
land. On  every  question  that  arose  and  that  became  a 
subject  of  serious  contest  in  the  Congress,  or  that  could 
lead  to  any  important  practical  result,  a  voice  had  been 
heard  from  Lord  Beaconsfield  and  Lord  Salisbury  which 
sounded  in  the  tones  of  Metternich,  and  not  in  the  tones 
of  Mr.  Canning,  or  of  Lord  Palmerston,  or  of  Lord  Rus- 
sell. I  do  not  mean  that  the  British  Government  ought 
to  have  gone  to  the  Congress  determined  to  insist  upon 
the  unqualified  prevalence  of  what  I  may  call  British 
ideas.  They  were  bound  to  act  in  consonance  with  the 
general  views  of  Europe.  But,  within  the  limits  of  fair 
difference  of  opinion,  which  will  always  be  found  to 


THE   EASTERN  QUESTION.  195 

arise  on  such  occasions,  I  do  affirm  that  it  was  their  part 
to  take  the  side  of  liberty ;  and  I  do  also  affirm  that  as  a 
matter  of  fact  they  took  the  side  of  servitude." 

He  also  vigorously  assailed  the  Anglo-Turkish 
Convention  ;  but  his  strongest  attack  upon  that 
compact  was  in  an  address  delivered  to  a  meeting 
of  Liberals  in  the  Drill  Hall,  Bermondsey  : 

"There  is  but  one  epithet  which,  T  think,  fully  de- 
scribes a  covenant  of  this  kind.  I  think  it  is  an  insane 
covenant.  I  have  known  well  the  most  eminent  states- 
men of  the  last  forty  years.  I  have  known  them  on  both 
sides  of  politics.  I  was  in  my  early  life  a  follower  of  Sir 
Robert  Peel  and  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  and  of  Lord 
Aberdeen  ;  and,  although  I  regret  some  things  that  I  did, 
and  have  altered  some  opinions  that  I  then  held,  yet,  in 
point  of  honor  and  public  duty,  I  am  not  in  the  least 
ashamed  of  any  act  of  my  public  life.  I  do  not  think 
that  the  country  ever  had  more  honorable  public  ser- 
vants ;  and,  moreover,  I  will  venture  to  say,  particularly 
of  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Lord  Aberdeen,  that  I  have  known 
under  the  name  of  Liberals  men  much  less  Liberal  than 
they.  But,  gentlemen,  what  I  wish  to  say  is  this,  that, 
having  known  them  on  the  other  side — and  having 
known  well  and  worked  with  such  men  as  Lord  Russell, 
Lord  Palmerston,  Lord  Lansdowne,  and  many  more  now 
called  to  their  account — I  do  not  believe  that  there  is 
one  of  those — 1  am  perfectly  confident  that  there  never 
was  one  of  those — men  who,  under  any  circumstances, 
would  have  been  induced  to  put  his  hand  to  suck  an  ar- 
rangement as  that  which,  to  our  shame,  as  I  think  now, 
has  gone  forth  under  the  name  of  the  Anglo- Turkish 
Convention." 


196  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

Even  stronger  language  followed,  as  Mr.  Glad- 
stone described  the  course  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment upon  the  subject  of  the  treaty  : 

"  It  is  perfectly  well  known  that,  if  Eussia  is  to  attack 
India,  which  I  for  one  believe  to  be  a  perfectly  chimeri- 
cal idea,  she  must  attack  India  through  the  heart  of  Asia, 
and  that  is  not  through  Asia  Minor — it  is  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Caspian,  on  the  other  side  of  Persia,  far  away 
from  Asia  Minor,  and  our  defending  Turkey  in  Asia 
Minor  against  Russia  has  no  imaginable  connection  with 
driving  Russia  off  the  road  to  India,  so  that  the  absurdity 
of  the  arrangement  is  gross ;  but  it  has  other  qualities 
worse  than  its  absurdity — its  duplicity.  I  say  that  it  has 
been  a  work  of  duplicity,  and  what  I  tell  you  here  I  hope 
to  restate  next  week — that  this  is  an  act  of  duplicity  of 
which  every  Englishman  should  be  ashamed.  Why,  what 
have  we  been  doing?  Why  has  the  country  been  kept 
in  hot  water  since  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano  was  signed  ? 
Because  we  insisted  that  no  part  of  that  treaty  could  be 
established  without  the  consent  of  Europe,  unless  it  af- 
fected the  interior  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  and  we  must 
have  it  brought  before  Europe.  It  was  brought  before 
Europe,  accordingly,  without  reserve,  and  at  that  very 
time  we  ourselves,  without  the  c<>nsec  t  of  Europe,  were 
framing  a  secret  engagement  with  Turkey — which  inter- 
fered at  every  point  with  the  Treaty  of  San  Stefano — an 
act  of  duplicity  which,  I  am  sure,  has  never  been  sur- 
passed, and,  I  believe,  has  rarely  been  equaled  in  the 
history  of  nations." 

"Mr.  Gladstone's  denunciations  of  the  Gov- 
ernment," says  Mr.  Smith,  "have  to  some  ap- 


THE  ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN  OF   1879-'80.     197 

peared  unmeasured  and  unwarrantable  ;  but  those 
who  thus  judge  him  forget  that,  whether  rightly 
or  wrongly,  his  successors  have  traversed  every 
political  and  financial  principle  to  which  he  has 
steadfastly  adhered  through  a  public  career  extend- 
ing over  nearly  half  a  century. "  Moreover,  it  may 
be  said  that  they  owe  much  of  their  polemical  and 
personal  character  to  the  firm  and  settled  con- 
viction of  Mr.  Gladstone  that  the  policy  of  Lord 
Beaconsfield  had  been  derogatory  to  the  honor  and 
interests  of  England  at  home  and  abroad. 


XV. 

THE  ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN  OF   1879-'80. 

THE  electoral  campaign  which  ended  in  the 
recent  Conservative  collapse  may  be  fairly  said  to 
have  begun  with  the  great  series  of  public  speeches 
which  Mr.  Gladstone  delivered  during  the  agita- 
tion, of  the  Eastern  Question.  These  speeches 
were  addressed  to  the  people  rather  than  to  Par- 
liament, and  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  now 
that  he  had  the  people  with  him  from  the  very 
start.  A  straw,  which  might  very  well  have  been 
taken  as  showing  the  direction  in  which  the  cur- 
rent was  flowing,  was  furnished  in  1878,  when 


198  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

Mr.  Gladstone  was  elected  Lord  Hector  of  Glasgow 
University  by  a  vote  of  1,153  to  609  for  Sir  Staf- 
ord  Northcote,  Lord  Beaconsfield  having  been  his 
predecessor  in  the  office. 

But  it  was  not  only  in  their  dealings  with  the 
Eastern  Question  that  Lord  Beaconsfield's  Gov- 
ernment rendered  themselves  liable  to  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's attack.  Their  foreign  policy  was  all  of  a 
piece,  and  in  Asia  and  Africa,  as  well  as  in  Eu- 
rope, tlie  effects  were  seen  of  an  intermeddling, 
self-asserting,  aggressive,  and  aggrandizing  policy. 
The  Treaty  of  Berlin  had  hardly  dissipated  the 
clouds  that  lowered  upon  the  European  horizon 
when  a  war  was  forced  upon  Afghanistan  ;  and  it 
seemed  as  if  Lord  Beaconsfield,  conscious  that 
Eussia  had  been  triumphant  in  Europe,  had  con- 
ceived the  fantastic  project  of  checkmating  and 
humiliating  her  in  Asia.  Then,  as  if  a  winter 
campaign  in  the  passes  of  the  Himalaya  were  not 
enough,  Sir  Bartle  Frere  provoked  a  war  with  the 
Zulus ;  and,  as  a  consequence  of  this,  the  one 
growing  and  progressive  native  state  in  South 
Africa  was  overthrown  and  disorganized. 

Both  the  Afghan  war  and  the  Zulu  war  were 
vigorously  condemned  by  Mr.  Gladstone  ;  and  on 
these  issues  the  Liberal  party,  which  had  been  far 
from  unanimous  on  the  Eastern  Question,  once 
more  drew  together  and  presented  a  united  front. 
In  reference  to  Lord  Beaconsfield's  cynical  ex- 
planation that  the  war  against  Afghanistan  had 


THE  ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN  OF  1879-'80.     199 

for  its  object  a  "scientific  frontier,"  Mr.  Glad- 
stone said  : 

"  What  right  have  we  to  annex  by  war  or  to  menace 
the  territory  of  our  neighbors,  in  order  to  make  '  scien- 
tific' a  frontier  which  is  already  safe?  What  should  wo 
say  of  such  an  act  if  done  by  another  Power?  Our 
frontier,  we  are  told,  causes  anxiety  to  our  viceroys.  I 
ask,  Which  among  the  viceroys  who  have  taken  and 
quitted  office,  and  sometimes  life,  with  so  much  honor, 
since  we  reached  our  northwestern  frontier,  have  recom- 
mended such  a  rectification  ?  Upon  the  whole,  I  must 
say  that  the  great  day  of  'sense  and  truth,'  instead 
of  relaxing  the  reserve  unhappily  maintained,  has  added 
a  new,  and,  to  all  appearance,  a  dangerous,  mystery  to 
those  which  before  prevailed  ;  has  left  us  more  than  ever 
at  the  mercy  of  anonymous  paragraphs ;  and  is,  so  far, 
likelj  to  increase  rather  than  dispel  the  gloom  which  is 
settling  on  the  country.  That  we  are  bound  to  observe 
and  promote  the  observance  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin,  there 
is  no  doubt.  We  should  do  it  with  better  grace  if  we 
had  not  ourselves  broken  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  and  vio- 
lated the  honorable  understanding  under  which  the 
powers  met  in  congress  by  the  Anglo -Turkish  Con- 
vention." 

The  financial  policy  of  the  Government — in- 
timately connected  as  it  was  with  its  course 
on  foreign  affairs — was  also  energetically  assailed 
by  Mr.  Gladstone.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote's  ex- 
chequer methods  were  exactly  opposite  to  those 
of  Mr.  Gladstone  at  the  time  of  the  Crimean  War. 
Mr.  Gladstone's  method  was,  as  far  as  possible,  to 


200  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

make  increased  income  meet  increased  expendi- 
ture ;  Sir  Stafford's  method  was  to  keep  down 
current  taxes  while  increasing  the  permanent  ob- 
ligations of  the  country  by  borrowing — thus  dis- 
guising the  real  cost  of  the  so-called  Imperial 
policy. 

A  convenient  summary  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
general  indictment  of  the  Beaconsfield  Adminis- 
tration is  to  be  found  in  a  speech  which  he  de- 
livered at  Chester,  on  the  19th  of  August,  1879  : 

"  I  hold  that  the  faith  and  honor  of  the  country  have 
been  gravely  compromised  by  the  foreign  policy  of  the 
Ministry;  that,  by  the  disturbance  of  confidence,  and 
lately  even  of  peace,  which  they  have  brought  about, 
they  have  prolonged  and  aggravated  public  distress ; 
that  they  have  augmented  the  power  and  interest  of  the 
Russian  Empire,  even  while  estranging  the  feelings  of  its 
population ;  that  they  have  embarked  the  Crown  and 
people  in  an  unjust  war ;  that  their  Afghan  war  is  full 
of  mischief,  if  not  of  positive  danger,  to  India ;  and  that, 
by  their  use  of  the  treaty  -  making  and  war  -  making 
powers  of  the  Crown,  they  have  abridged  the  just  rights 
of  Parliament,  and  have  presented  its  prerogatives  to  the 
nation  under  an  unconstitutional  aspect,  which  tends  to 
make  it  insecure." 

By  the  public  discussion  of  these  and  similar 
topics,  the  popular  mind  was  gradually  being  "  ed- 
ucated" for  that  decisive  struggle  at  the  polls 
which  could  not — on  account  of  the  limitation  of 
the  existence  of  a  Parliament  to  seven  years — be 


THE   ELECTORAL   CAMPAIGN  OF  1879-'80.     201 

postponed  beyond  1880.  But  the  first  formal 
opening  of  the  campaign  occurred  toward  the  end 
of  18T9,  when  Mr.  Gladstone,  having  accepted 
the  invitation  of  the  Liberal  electors  of  Mid- 
lothian to  stand  as  their  candidate,  resolved  to 
impeach  the  Ministry  before  the  Scotch  nation. 
Midlothian  was  one  of  the  strongholds  of  Con- 
servatism, and  IVfr.  Gladstone's  opponent  was  the 
son  of  the  local  magnate,  the  Duke  of  Buccleugh  ; 
but  the  great  Liberal  orator  resolved  to  make  trial 
of  what  could  ba  accomplished  by  the  voice  of 
reason  and  of  eloquence,  and  during  the  fortnight 
between  November  24th  and  December  3d  he 
made  his  preliminary  canvass. 

Referring  to  this  canvass,  an  author  whom  we 
have  quoted  before  (Mr.  Dunckley)  says  :  "  In  the 
wonderful  series  of  orations  delivered  in  Mid- 
lothian we  have  a  crowning  instance  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's intellectual  vigor  and  force  of  character. 
As  a  mere  feat  of  bodily  and  mental  prowess  it 
stands  unrivaled.  A  winter's  journey  to  Scot- 
land and  the  delivery  of  one  great  speech  might 
have  been  considered  enough  to  task  the  energies 
of  a  man  who  the  other  day  passed  the  Biblical 
limit  of  three  score  years  and  ten.  But  Mr.  Glad- 
stone made  several  speeches  on  his  way,  slight  skir- 
mishes prelusive  to  the  campaign,  and  on  reaching 
the.  enemy's  territory,  from  a  secure  base  of  oper- 
ations at  Dalmeny,  he  gave  battle  long  and  «l in- 
day  after  day  for  a  week  together,  finishing  up 


202  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

with  a  few  sprightly  flourishings  as  he  gayly  re- 
treated toward  the  liospi  tali  ties  of  Taymouth.  It 
was  a  mere  pastime  then  to  write  out  his  Lord 
Rector's  address,  and  fling  the  sheets  as  fast  as 
his  pen  glided  over  them  to  a  literary  aid-de- 
camp, who  undertook  to  have  them  in  type  next 
day.  In  the  academical  prelection  at  Glasgow 
the  political'  warrior  figured  in  the  equally  fa- 
miliar character  of  a  man  of  letters  ;  but  before 
the  day  was  over  he  had  thrown  off  his  robes, 
donned  his  armor,  and  was  busily  engaged  in 
giving  a  few  parting  strokes  to  the  enemy.  On 
returning,  as  in  going,  he  was  waylaid  at  the 
principal  stations,  and  while  the  train  was  get- 
ting ready  the  orator  fired  off  his  speech  to  ap- 
plauding thousands.  Taken  as  a  whole,  the 
exhibition  is  astounding.  It  is  like  a  revelation 
of  one  of  Nature's  hitherto  unsuspected  marvels. 
We  try  to  think  of  heroes  with  whom  to  com- 
pare him,  but  find  none.  The  '  frame  of  adamant 
and  soul  of  fire'  were  ascribed  to  a  man  of 
six-and-thirty,  and  Mr.  Gladstone's  achievement 
combines  intellectual  intrepidity  with  physical 
endurance.  In  this  Midlothian  campaign  we  have 
an  illustration  on  the  largest  scale  of  that  feature 
of  his  character  which  strikes  us  most,  and  the 
impression  of  which  lasts  longest  with  us.  It  is 
expressed  in  the  word  force,  power  in  action." 

The  popular  enthusiasm  aroused  by  Mr.  Glad- 
stone everywhere  that  he  went  was  a  memorable 


THE  ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN   OF   1879-'80.     203 

display  ;  and  when  he  had  finished,  it  was  found 
that  a  flood  had  swept  over  Scotland,  and  that 
the  Conservative  landmarks  were  all  under  water. 
Nor  were  indications  wanting  that  the  interest 
and  enthusiasm  were  shared  by  the  people  of 
England  also.  Yet  at  this  very  time  the  club 
men  of  London  and  many  metropolitan  journals 
were  fatuously  declaring  that  Mr.  Gladstone's 
"violence"  had  irretrievably  damaged  his  cause, 
and  were  echoing  Lord  Beaconsfield's  sneer  about 
the  exuberance  of  his  verbosity. 

It  was  generally  expected  that  Parliament 
would  be  dissolved  during  the  recess,  it  being  con- 
trary to  usage  for  the  House  of  Commons  to  sit 
for  more  than  six  sessions  ;  but  when,  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  session  of  1880,  the  Ministry  submitted 
a  lengthy  and  comprehensive  programme  of  work, 
the  public  settled  down  upon  the  conclusion  that 
dissolution  would  be  postponed  until  the  autumn. 
An  unexpected  difficulty,  however,  was  encount- 
ered in  the  unpopularity  of  a  Water  bill  intro- 
duced by  Mr.  Cross,  the  Home  Secretary. 
Rather  than  face  the  discredit  of  certain  defeat 
on  this  measure  the  Conservative  leaders  deter- 
mined to  dissolve  Parliament  at  once.  Nor  were 
there  wanting  other  inducements  to  this  course. 
The  state  of  Ireland  was  becoming  daily  more 
menacing ;  the  Conservative  managers  thought 
they  had  succeeded  in  fixing  upon  the  Liberals 
the  stigma  of  sympathy  if  not  complicity  with 


204  WILLIAM   EWART  GLADSTONE. 

the  Home  Rulers  ;  and  several  by-elections  seem 
to  show  that  the  popular  reaction  against  Mr. 
Gladstone's  "  violence  "  had  actually  begun. 

The  second  week  in  March  Lord  Beaconsfield 
wrote  a  letter  to  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  the 
Viceroy  of  Ireland,  announcing  that  her  Majesty 
had  determined  to  "  revert  to  the  sense  of  her 
people,"  defending  the  diplomacy  whereby  Eng- 
land had  been  enabled  to  maintain  peace,  ''which 
rests  on  the  presence,  not  to  say  the  ascendancy, 
of  England  in  the  Councils  of  Europe,"  and  ex- 
pressing the  fervent  hope  that  the  election  would 
result  in  the  return  to  Westminster  of  a  Parlia- 
ment "  not  unworthy  of  the  power  of  England, 
and  resolved  to  maintain  it."  On  the  24th  of 
March  the  official  proclamation  was  issued,  and  a 
general  election  began,  the  results  of  which  as- 
tonished the  world,  and  none  more  than  the  Lib- 
erals themselves. 

The  more  sanguine  Liberals  had  counted  upon 
materially  thinning  the  ranks  of  Lord  Beacons- 
field's  supporters,  and  the  utmost  that  was  even 
hoped  was  that  a  small  majority  might  be  se- 
cured ;  but,  as  soon  as  the  first  returns  began  to 
corne  in,  it  was  evident  that  a  revolution  had 
swept  over  the  country,  and  that  the  Conservatives 
were  smitten  hip  and  thigh.  An  unpvecedentedly 
large  number  of  voters  had  gone  to  the  polls  ;  and 
the  new  Parliament  toward  which  Lord  Beacons- 
field  had  looked  with  such  "fervent  hope"  re- 


TlIE  ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN  OF   1879-'80.     205 

turned  to  Westminster  with  a  Liberal  majority  of 
114  (majority  over  Conservatives  and  Home  Rulers 
combined,  52). 

Commenting  upon  this  result,  the  "  London 
Spectator "  said  :  "  It  was  Mr.  Gladstone's  first 
great  campaign  in  Midlothian  which  rallied  the 
whole  of  Scotland  to  his  side,  and  awakened  the 
popular  mind  in  England.  His  second  great  cam- 
paign in  Midlothian  definitively  brought  the  whole 
people  of  England  to  understand  how  big  an  issue 
there  was  before  the  country,  and  how  much  it 
concerned  every  Englishman  who  loves  justice 
and  liberty  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  Scotland  in  re- 
lation to  the  judgment  to  be  delivered.  Nothing 
can  be  more  marked  than  the  way  in  which  the 
English  constituencies,  stirred  by  Mr.  Gladstone's 
voice,  have  answered  his  appeal.  He  spoke  in 
Marylebone,  where  a  Tory  headed  the  poll  at  the 
last  election  ;  all  Marylebone  was  stirred  to  its 
depths,  and  two  Liberals  were  returned,  with  two 
thousand  votes  to  spare  for  the  lower  of  the 
two.  He  spoke  at  Grantham,  on  his  way  to  Scot- 
land ;  and  Grantham,  where  the  representation 
was  divided  between  a  Liberal  and  a  Conservative, 
has  sent  back  two  Liberals.  He  spoke  at  York  ; 
and  York,  where  the  representation  was  divided, 
has  sent  back  two  Liberals.  He  spoke  at  New- 
castle ;  and  Newcastle,  where  the  representation 
was  divided,  has  sent  back  two  Liberals.  He 
spoke  at  Berwick ;  and  Berwick,  where  the  rep- 


206  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

reservation  was  divided,  has  returned  two  Liber- 
als. So  that  not  only  in  Scotland,  where  no  one 
doubted  the  ascendancy  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  political 
convictions,  but  wherever  he  has  been  in  popular 
contact  with  the  English  constituencies,  the  re- 
sult has  been  equally  decisive.  We  take  it  that 
we  shall  hear  no  more  of  the  misfortunes  which 
the  Liberal  party  are  to  suffer  as  the  result  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  *  exuberant  verbosity.'  As  Sir 
W.  Harcourt  has  very  justly  said,  it  is  what  Lord 
Beaconsfield  termed  Mr.  Gladstone's  'exuberant 
verbosity '  which  has  overthrown  Lord  Beacons- 
field.  The  extraordinary  vote  which  the  constit- 
uencies have  given,  a  vote  which,  even  in  its  Con- 
servative element  has  increased  on  the  former 
vote  by  twelve  per  cent.,  and  in  its  Liberal  ele- 
ments by  thirty-nine  per  cent.,  is  one  due  almost 
exclusively,  we  believe,  to  the  effect  which  Mr. 
Gladstone's  campaign  has  had  in  impressing  on 
the  whole  country  the  great  political  stake  at 
issue.  It  is  Mr.  Gladstone's  voice  which  has 
roused  the  country,  and  Mr.  Gladstone's  convic- 
tion which  has  carried  it.  Like  Achilles,  when 
he  left  his  tent,  his  mere  cry  scared  the  victors, 
as  they  then  thought  themselves,  in  the  full  heat 
of  their  assault.  Like  Achilles,  when  he  entered 
the  battle,  everything  has  gone  down  before  him, 
or  rather,  everything  has  seemed  to  ally  itself 
with  him  and  his  cause."  A  confirmation  of  this 
is  afforded  by  the  fact  that  at  all  the  election 


THE  ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN  OF   1879-80.     207 

speeches  during  the  entire  contest  every  mention 
of  Mr.  Gladstone's  name  "  was  received  with  vo- 
ciferous and  enthusiastic  cheering." 

The  significance  of  these  facts  was  seen  in 
the  events  which  immediately  followed.  Lord 
Beaconsfield,  bowing  gracefully  to  the  national 
verdict  of  dismissal,  did  not  wait  for  the  meet- 
ing of  Parliament,  but  resigned  office  at  once. 
In  accordance  with  usage  the  Queen  then  sent  for 
Lord  Ilartington,  the  titular  leader  of  the  Lib- 
eral party ;  but  both  Lord  Hartington  and  Lord 
Granville  assured  her  Majesty  that  under  the 
circumstances  there  was  no  possible  Prime  Minis- 
ter but  Mr.  Gladstone.  Yielding  reluctantly  to 
the  logic  of  events — for  it  is  understood  that  Mr. 
Gladstone  is  far  from  popular  at  court — the  Queen 
finally  sent  for  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  the  Great 
Commoner  of  our  day  has  again  become  Premier 
under  circumstances  which  make  him  as  nc;n  Iv  a 
dictator  as  English  constitutional  usage  will  allow. 

Thus  striking  and  dramatic  were  the  personal 
consequences  of  the  election.  In  regard  to  its 
more  intimate  significance  and  more  far-reaching 
effects,  we  may  quote  two  widely  different  com- 
mendations. An  "  Eastern-  Statesman,"  writing 
in  the  "Contemporary  Review,"  says:  "Other 
oppressors  of  mankind  have  clothed  their  doings 
under  some  decent  pretexts.  I.f  we  read  the  trea- 
ties and  state  papers  with  which,  as  Gibbon  and 
Sismondi  have  taught  us,  kings  and  ministers 


208  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

have  striven  to  deceive  mankind,  it  is  wonderful 
to  see  what  exalted  motives  are  professed  for  the 
very  ugliest  of  doings.  But  the  Government  of 
Lord  Beaconsfield  were  above  this  kind  of  thing. 
They  saw  no  need  to  assume  a  virtue,  to  pay  hom- 
age to  virtue ;  they  boldly  professed  that  inter- 
est, and  not  right,  was  their  only  standard.  At 
the  late  election  the  intellectual  sense  of  the  na- 
tion declared  that  the  so-called  British  interests 
were  no  British  interests  at  all ;  its  moral  sense 
declared  that,  if  they  were  British  interests,  still 
British  interests  were  not  to  be  set  before  British 
duties  and  British  honor.  The  victory,  then,  of 
the  elections  is  preeminently  a  moral  victory,  a 
triumph  of  right  over  wrong.  He  who  says  this 
must  of  course  expect  to  be  scoffed  at,  whether 
by  those  who  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any 
right  or  wrong  at  all,  or  by  those  who  do  not  be- 
lieve that  a  nation,  as  such,  can  be  guided  by  the 
rules  of  right  and  wrong.  Yet  experience  shows 
that  the  instincts  of  a  people  are  most  commonly 
right,  and  that,  when  a  people  goes  astray,  it  is 
commonly  from  not  having  the  right  and  wrong 
of  the  case  fully  set  before  it.  The  popular  sym- 
pathy for  the  Turk  i-n  1854  was  not  an  unright- 
eous or  ungenerous  feeling  ;  it  was  simply  a  mis- 
guided feeling,  based  on  a  thoroughly  wrong  con- 
ception of  the  facts.  This  time  the  people  have 
had  the  facts  set  before  them  with  all  truth  and 
all  clearness  ;  and  they  have  judged  accordingly. 


THE   ELECTORAL  CAMPAIGN  OP   1879-'80.    209 

Generally,  then,  the  election  is  a  victory  of  good 
over  evil." 

And  a  writer  in  the  New  York  "Nation" 
more  finely  says  :  "  There  is  one  great  feature 
about  the  election  which  may  almost  be  called 
pathetic.  The  area  of  the  globe  over  which  the 
result  was  looked  for  with  eager  anxiety  was,  of 
course,  very  great,  and  illustrates  strikingly  the 
vastness  of  the  Empire.  But  what  gives  a  touch 
of  splendor  to  the  Liberal  victory  is  that  whole 
races  in  the  East  have  seen  it  as  a  great  light. 
To  every  Christian  still  groaning  under  Turkish 
rule  it  means  speedy  help  and  deliverance.  To 
the  Christians  lately  emancipated  and  to  the 
Greeks  it  means  the  consolidation  and  mainte- 
nance of  their  freedom  and  independence.  To  the 
Hindus  it  means  government  for  their  own  sake, 
and  not  for  the  gratification  of  foreign  pride. 
For  the  Afghans  it  means  a  cessation  of  pillage 
and  slaughter  in  aid  of  a  'scientific  frontier.* 
To  the  Turk  it  means  that  he  must  be  clean  and 
honest  and  industrious,  or  die.  These  things 
must  sweeten  their  triumph  to  the  English  Lib- 
erals, and  would  make  it  precious  even  if  they 
did  not  know  that  it  had  probably  put  an  end  to 
the  last  effort  that  will  ever  be  made  on  English 
soil  to  set  up  personal  government  and  restore  the 
mystery  of  statecraft." 
14 


210  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

XVI. 

QUALITIES  AS  AS"  OEATOE. 

A  NUMBER  of  the  most  famous  and  character- 
istic specimens  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  eloquence  have 
been  introduced  at  various  points  in  the  preceding 
narrative  ;  in  the  present  chapter  we  shall  attempt 
to  indicate  and  illustrate  his  position  and  qualities 
as  an  orator.  "  Among  living  competitors  for 
the  oratorical  crown,"  says  Mr.  A.  Hay  ward,  in 
one  of  his  "Essays,"  "  the  first  place  will  be  con- 
ceded without  a  dissenting  voice  to  Mr.  Gladstone. 
An  excellent  judge,  a  frequent  opponent  of  his 
policy,  whom  we  consulted,  declared  that  it  was 
Eclipse  first  and  all  the  rest  nowhere.  He  may 
lack  Mr.  Bright's  impressive  diction,  impressive 
by  its  simplicity,  or  Mr.  Disraeli's  humor  and 
sarcasm  ;  but  he  has  made  ten  eminently  success- 
ful speeches  to  Mr.  Bright's  or  Mr.  Disraeli's  one. 
His  foot  is  ever  in  the  stirrup  ;  his  lance  is  ever 
in  the  rest.  He  throws  down  the  gauntlet  to  all 
comers.  Right  or  wrong,  he  is  always  real,  natu- 
ral, earnest,  unaffected,  and  unforced.  He  is  a 
great  debater,  a  great  Parliamentary  speaker ; 
with  a  shade  more  imagination,  he  would  be  a 
great  orato'r." 

Mr.  Justin   McCarthy  demurs  somewhat  to 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  ORATOR.  211 

this  •  verdict,  but  bears  cordial  testimony  to  Mr. 
Gladstone's  wonderful  powers.  He  says  :  "  A 
distinguished  critic  once  pronounced  Mr.  Glad- 
stone to  be  the  greatest  Parliamentary  orator  of 
our  time,  on  the  ground  that  he  had  made  by  far 
the  greatest  number  of  fine  speeches,  while  ad- 
mitting that  two  or  three  speeches  had  been  made 
by  other  men  of  the  day  which  might  rank  higher 
than  any  of  his.  This  is,  however,  a  principle  of 
criticism  which  posterity  never  sanctions.  The 
greatest  speech,  the  greatest  poem,  give  the  author 
the  highest  place,  though  the  effort  were  but 
single.  Shakespeare  would  rank  beyond  Massinger 
just  as  he  does  now  had  he  written  only  '  The 
Tempest.'  We  can  not  say  how  many  novels, 
each  as  good  as  '  Gil  Bias,'  would  make  Le  Sage 
the  equal  of  Cervantes.  On  this  point  fame  is 
inexorable.  We  are  not,  therefore,  inclined  to 
call  Mr.  Gladstone  the  greatest  English  orator  of 
our  time  when  we  remember  some  of  the  finest 
speeches  of  Mr.  Bright ;  but  did  we  regard  Parlia- 
mentary speaking  as  a  mere  instrument  of  Parlia- 
mentary business  and  debate,  then  unquestionably 
Mr.  Gladstone  is  not  only  the  greatest,  but  by  far 
the  greatest,  English  orator  of  our  time  ;  for  he 
had  a  richer  combination  of  gifts  than  any  other 
man  we  can  remember,  and  he  could  use  them 
oftenest  with  effect.  He  was  like  a  racer  which 
can  not,  indeed,  always  go  faster  than  every  rival, 
but  can  win  more  races  in  the  year  than  any  other 


212  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

horse.  Mr.  Gladstone  could  get  up  at  any  mo- 
ment, and  no  matter  how  many  times  a  night, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  be  argumentative 
or  indignant,  pour  out  a  stream  of  impassioned 
eloquence  or  a  shower  of  figures,  just  as  the  ex- 
igency of  the  debate  and  the  moment  required. 
He  was  not,  of  course,  always  equal ;  but  he  was 
always  eloquent  and  effective.  He  seemed  as  if 
he  could  not  be  anything  but  eloquent.  Perhaps, 
judged  in  this  way,  he  never  had  an  equal  in  the 
English  Parliament.  Neither  Pitt  nor  Fox  ever 
made  so  many  speeches  combining  so  many  great 
qualities.  Chatham  was  a  great  actor  rather  than 
a  great  orator.  Burke  was  the  greatest  political 
essayist  who  ever  addressed  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Canning  did  not  often  rise  above  the 
level  of  burnished  rhetorical  commonplace.  Ma- 
caulay,  who  during  his  time  drew  the  most 
crowded  houses  of  any  speaker,  not  even  except- 
ing Peel,  was  not  an  orator  in  the  true  sense. 
Probably  no  one,  past  or  present,  had  in  com- 
bination so  many  gifts  of  voice,  manner,  fluency, 
and  argument,  style,  reason,  and  passion  as  Mr. 
Gladstone." 

That  first  qualification  of  an  orator — voice — 
Mr.  Gladstone  possesses  in  perfection.  One  who 
has  heard  him  often  says  :  ."As  for  his  voice,  it 
is  like  a  silver  clarion.  And  the  charm  of  that 
harmonious  voice  is — that,  after  the  delivery  of  a 
speech  of  four  or  five  hours  in  its  duration,  and 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  ORATOR.  213 

(teste  Hansard  ! )  there  have  been  such  speeches, 
the  closing  words  of  the  peroration  will  ring  as 
clear  as  a  bell  upon  the  ear,  without  the  faintest 
perceptible  indication,  to  the  last,  of  anything 
like  physical  exhaustion."  And  Mr.  McCarthy 
says :  "  Such  a  voice  would  make  commonplace 
seem  interesting  and  lend  something  of  fascina- 
tion to  dullness  itself.  It  was  singularly  pure, 
clear,  resonant,  and  sweet.  The  orator  never 
seemed  to  use  the  slightest  effort  or  strain  in  fill- 
ing any  hall  and  reaching  the  ear  of  the  farthest 
among  the  audience.  It  was  not  a  loud  voice 
or  of  great  volume ;  but  strong,  vibrating,  and 
silvery.  The  words  were  always  aided  by  ener- 
getic action  and  by  the  deep  gleaming  eyes  of  the 
orator.  Somebody  once  said  that  Gladstone  was 
the  only  man  in  the  House  who  could  talk  in 
italics.  The  saying  was  odd,  but  was  neverthe- 
less appropriate  and  expressive.  Gladstone  could 
by  the  slightest  modulation  of  his  voice  give  all 
the  emphasis  of  italics,  of  small  print,  or  large 
print-,  or  any  other  effect  he  might  desire,  to  his 
spoken  words.  It  is  not  to  be  denied  .that  his 
wonderful  gift  of  words  sometimes  led  him  astray. 
It  was  often  such  a  fluency  as  that  of  a  torrent  on 
which  the  orator  was  carried  away.  Gladstone 
had  to  pay  for  his  fluency  by  being  too  fluent. 
He  could  seldom  resist  the  temptation  to  shower 
too  many  words  on  his  subject  and  his  hearers. 
Sometimes  he  involved  his  sentence  in  paren- 


214  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

thesis  within  parenthesis  until  the  ordinary  lis- 
tener began  to  think  extrication  an  impossibil- 
ity ;  but  the  orator  never  failed  to  unravel  all  the 
entanglements,  and  to  bring  the  passage  out  to 
a  clear  and  legitimate  conclusion.  There  was 
never  any  halt  or  incoherency,  nor  did  the  joints 
of  the  sentence  fail  to  fit  together  in  the  right 
way.  Harley  once  described  a  famous  speech  as 
*a  circumgyration  of  incoherent  words.'  This 
description  certainly  could  not  be  applied  even  to 
Mr.  Gladstone's  most  involved  passages  ;  but  if 
some  of  those  were  described  as  a  circumgyration 
of  coherent  words,  the  phrase  might  be  consid- 
ered germane  to  the  matter.  His  style  was  com- 
monly too  redundant.  It  seemed  as  if  it  belonged 
to  a  certain  school  of  exuberant  Italian  rhetoric. 
Yet  it  was  hardly  to  be  called  florid.  Gladstone 
indulged  in  few  flowers  of  rhetoric,  and  his  great 
gift  was  not  imagination.  His  fault  was  simply 
the  habitual  use  of  too  many  words.  This  defect 
was  indeed  a  characteristic  of  the  Peelite  school 
of  eloquence.  Mr.  Gladstone  retained  some  of  the 
defects  of  the  school  in  which  he  had  been  trained, 
even  after  he  had  come  to  surpass  its  greatest 
master. 

"  Often,  however,  this  superb,  exuberant  rush 
of  words  added  indescribable  strength  to  the 
eloquence  of  the  speaker.  In  passages  of  indig- 
nant remonstrance  or  denunciation,  when  word 
followed  word,  and  stroke  came  down  upon  stroke, 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  ORATOR.  215 

with  a  wealth  of  resource  that  seemed  inexhausti- 
ble, the  very  fluency  and  variety  of  the  speaker 
overwhelmed  his  audience.  Interruption  only  gave 
him  a  new  stimulus,  and  appeared  to  supply  him 
with  fresh  resources  of  argument  and  illustration. 
His  retorts  leaped  to  his  lips.  His  eye  caught 
sometimes  even  the  mere  gesture  that  indicated 
dissent  or  question  ;  and  perhaps  some  unlucky 
opponent,  who  was  only  thinking  of  what  might 
be  said  in  opposition  to  the  great  orator,  found 
himself  suddenly  dragged  into  the  conflict  and 
overwhelmed  with  a  torrent  of  remonstrance, 
argument,  and  scornful  words.  Gladstone  had 
not  much  humor  of  the  playful  kind,  but  he 
had  a  certain  force  of  sarcastic  and  scornful 
rhetoric.  He  was  always  terribly  in  earnest. 
Whether  the  subject  were  great  or  small,  he 
threw  his  whole  soul  into  it.  Once,  in  address- 
ing a  school-boy  gathering,  he  told  his  young 
listeners  that  if  a  boy  ran  he  ought  always  to  run 
as  fast  as  he  could  ;  if  he  jumped,  he  ought  al- 
ways to  jump  as  far  as  he  could.  He  illustrated 
his  maxim  in  his  own  career.  He  had  no  idea 
apparently  of  running  or  jumping  in  such  measure 
as  happened  to  please  the  fancy  of  the  moment. 
He  always  exercised  his  splendid  powers  to  the 
uttermost  strain." 

Of  Mr.  Gladstone's  appearance  and  manner  in 
speaking,  Mr.  Lucy — after  quoting  the  description 
of  the  young  man  eloquent  which  we  have  our- 


216  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

selves  reproduced  in  its  proper  connection  * — gives 
the  following  animated  picture  : 

"It  is  curious  to  note  that  some  of  these  man- 
nerisms of  forty  years  ago  are  preserved  by  the 
great  statesman  we  know  to-day.  It  is  particu- 
larly notable  that  to  this  day,  when  Mr.  Gladstone 
rises  and  begins  what  is  intended  to  be  a  great 
oration,  he  has  a  tendency  to  clasp  his  hands  be- 
hind his  back.  This  attitude,  however,  like  the 
subdued  mood  of  which  it  is  an  indication,  pre- 
vails only  during  the  opening  sentences.  Age  has 
fired  rather  than  dulled  his  oratorical  energy.  lie 
has  even,  during  the  existence  of  the  present  Par- 
liament, increased  in  rapidity  of  gesture  almost  to 
the  point  of  fury.  The  jet-black  hair  of  forty 
years  ago  has  faded  and  fallen,  leaving  only  a  few 
thin  wisps  of  gray  carefully  disposed  over  the 
grandly  formed  head  with  which,  as  he  told  a 
Scotch  deputation  the  other  day,  London  hatters 
have  had  such  trouble.  The  rounded  cheeks  are 
sunken,  and  their  bloom  has  given  place'to  pallor  ; 
the  full  brow  is  wrinkled  ;  the  dark  eyes,  bright 
and  flashing  still,  are  underset  with  innumerable 
wrinkles  ;  the  '  good  figure '  is  somewhat  rounded 
at  the  shoulders  ;  and  the  sprightly  step  is  growing 
deliberate.  But  the  intellectual  fire  of  forty  years 
ago  is  rather  quickened  than  quenched,  and  the 
promise  of  health  has  been  abundantly  fulfilled 
in  a  maintenance  of  physical  strength  and  activity 
*  See  page  36. 


QUALITIES  AS   AN   ORATOR.  217 

that  seems  phenomenal.  Mr.  Gladstone  will  out- 
sit the  youngest  member  of  the  House  if  the  issue 
at  stake  claims  his  vote  in  the  pending  division. 
He  can  speak  for  three  hours  at  a  stretch,  and  he 
will  put  in  the  three  hours  as  much  mental  and 
physical  energy  as,  judiciously  distributed,  would 
suffice  for  the  whole  debate.  His  magnificent 
voice  is  as  true  in  tone  and  as  insensible  to  fatigue 
as  when  it  was  first  heard  within  the  walls  of  the 
House.  By  comparison  he  is  far  more  emphatic 
in  gesture  when  addressing  the  House  of  Com- 
mons than  when  standing  before  a  public  meeting. 
This,  doubtless,  is  explicable  by  the  fact  that,  while 
in  the  one  case  he  is  free  from  contradiction,  in 
the  other  he  is,  more  particularly  during  a  period 
of  Tory  ascendancy,  outrageously  subject  to  it. 
Trembling  through  every  nerve  with  intensity  of 
conviction  and  the  wrath  of  battle,  he  almost  liter- 
ally smites  his  opponent  hip  and  thigh.  Taking 
the  brass-bound  box  upon  the  table  as  representa- 
tive of  '  the  right  honorable  gentleman  '  or  '  the 
noble  lord '  opposite,  he  will  beat  it  violently  with 
his  right  hand,  creating  a  resounding  noise  that 
sometimes  makes  it  difficult  to  catch  the  words  he 
desires  to  emphasize.  Or,  standing  with  heels 
closely  pressed  together,  and  feet  spread  out  fan- 
wise,  so  that  he  may  turn  as  on  a  pivot  to  watch 
the  effect  of  his  speech  on  either  side  of  the  House, 
he  will  assume  that  the  palm  of  his  left  hand  is 
his  adversary  of  the  moment,  and  straightway  he 


218  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

beats  upon  it  with  his  right  hand  with  a  ferocity 
that  causes  to  curdle  the  blood  of  the  occupants 
of  the  Ladies'  Gallery.  At  this  stage  will  be  noted 
the  most  marked  retention  of  early  House  of  Com- 
mons habit,  in  the  way  in  which  the  orator  con- 
tinually turns  round  to  address  his  own  followers, 
to  the  outraging  of  a  fundamental  point  of  etiquette 
which  requires  that  all  speech  should  be  directed 
to  the  Chair." 

Another  observer,  writing  some  years  ago  in 
the  "Gentleman's  Magazine,"  says  :  "Mr.  Glad- 
stone's oratorical  manner  is  much  more  strongly 
marked  by  action  than  is  Mr.  Bright's.  He  em- 
phasizes by  smiting  his  right  hand  in  the  open 
palm  of  his  left ;  by  pointing  his  ringer  straight 
out  at  his  adversary,  real  or  representative  ;  and, 
in  his  hottest  moments,  by  beating  the  table  with 
his  clenched  hand.  Sometimes  in  answer  to  cheers 
he  turns  right  round  to  his  immediate  supporters 
on  the  benches  behind  him,  and  speaks  directly  to 
them  ;  whereupon  the  Conservatives,  who  hugely 
enjoy  a  baiting  of  the  emotional  ex-Premier,  call 
out  '  Order  !  order  ! '  This  call  seldom  fails  in 
the  desired  effect  of  exciting  the  right  honorable 
gentleman's  irascibility,  and  when  he  loses  his 
temper  his  opponents  may  well  be  glad.  Mr. 
Bright  always  writes  out  the  peroration  of  his 
speeches,  and  at  one  time  was  accustomed  to 
send  the  slip  of  paper  to  the  reporters.  Mr. 
Disraeli  sometimes  writes  out  the  whole  of  his 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  ORATOR.  219 

speeches.  The  one  he  delivered  to  the  Glas- 
glow  students  in  "November,  1873,  was  in  type  in 
the  office  of  a  London  newspaper  at  the  moment 
the  right  honorable  gentleman  was  speaking  at 
the  university.  Mr.  Gladstone  never  writes  a 
line  of  his  speeches,  and  some  of  his  most  suc- 
cessful ones  have  been  made  in  the  heat  of  de- 
bate, and  necessarily  without  preparation.  His 
speech  in  winding  up  the  debate  on  the  Irish 
University  bill  has  rarely  been  excelled  for  close 
reasoning,  brilliant  illustration,  and  powerful  elo- 
quence ;  yet  if  it  be  referred  to  it  will  be  seen 
that  it  is  for  the  greatest  and  best  part  a  reply  to 
the  speech  of  Mr.  Disraeli,  who  had  just  sat  down, 
yielding  the  floor  to  his  rival  half  an  hour  after 
midnight. 

"  Evidence  of  the  same  swift  reviewing  of  a 
position,  and  of  the  existence  of  the  same  power 
of  instantly  marshaling  arguments  and  illus- 
trations, and  sending  them  forth  clad  in  a  pano- 
ply of  eloquence,  is  apparent  in  Mr.  Giladstone's 
speech  when  commenting  on  Mr.  Disraeli's  an- 
nouncement of  the  withdrawal  of  the  main  por- 
tion of  the  Endowed  Schools  Act  Amendment  bill. 
The  announcement,  and  especially  the  manner  in 
which  it  was  made,  was  a  surprise  that  almost 
stunned  and  momentarily  bewildered  the  House 
of  Commons.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  bound  to  speak, 
and  to  speak  the  moment  Mr.  Disraeli  resumed 
his  seat.  He  had  no  opportunity  to  take  counsel, 


220  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

and  no  time  to  make  preparations  for  his  speccli  ; 
but  the  result  of  his  masterly  oration  at  this  crisis 
was  that  the  unpopularity  and  dissatisfaction 
created  by  the  course  he  had  taken  in  the  matter 
of  the  Regulation  of  Public  Worship  bill  melted 
like  snow  in  the  firelight,  and  the  conviction  was 
borne  in  upon  his  discontented  followers  that,  as 
long  as  Mr.  Gladstone  lived  and  chose  to  hold 
the  office,  there  was  no  other  leader  possible  for 
the  Liberal  party." 

"As  a  debater,"  says  Mr.  T.  Wemyss  Eeid 
(in  his  "Cabinet  Portraits"),  "he  [Mr.  Glad- 
stone] stands  without  a  rival  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Mr.  Disraeli  possesses  a  brilliant  Avit 
and  power  of  sarcasm  to  which  he  can  lay  no 
claim  ;  but  no  one  who  has  seen  Mr.  Gladstone 
take  his  part  in  a  great  party  battle  will  question 
his  superiority  as  a  debater  to  any  of  his  rivals 
or  colleagues.  He  is  never  seen  to  so  much  ad- 
vantage as  when,  at  the  close  of  a  long  discussion, 
he  rises  in  the  midst  of  a  crowded  House  impa- 
tient for  the  division  to  reply  to  Mr.  Disraeli  or 
Mr.  Hardy.  The  readiness  with  which  he  re- 
plies to  a  speech  just  delivered  is  amazing.  He 
will  take  up,  one  after  another,  the  arguments  of 
his  opponent,  and  examine  them  and  debate  them 
with  as  much  precision  and  fluency  as  though  he 
had  spent  weeks  in  the  preparation  of  his  answer. 
Then,  too,  at  such  moments  time  is  precious, 
and  he  is  compelled  to  repress  that  tendency  to 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  ORATOR.  221 

prolixity  which  is  one  of  his  greatest  faults  as 
an  orator.  His  sentences,  instead  of  wandering 
on  interminably,  are  short  and  clear,  and  from 
beginning  to  end  of  the  speech  there  is  hardly  a 
word  which  seems  unnecessary. 

"The  excitement,  too,  which  prevails  around 
him  always  infects  him  strongly ;  his  pale  face 
twitches,  his  magnificent  voice  quivers,  his  body 
sways  from  side  to  side  as  he  pours  forth  argu- 
ment, pleading,  and  invective,  strangely  inter- 
mingled. The  storm  of  cheers  and  counter- 
cheers  rages  around  him,  as  it  can  rage  nowhere 
except  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  sucH  an 
occasion,  but  high  and  clear  above  the  tumult 
rings  out  his  voice,  like  the  trumpet  sounding 
through  the  din  of  the  battle-field.  As  he  draws 
to  a  close  something  like  a  calm  conies  over  the 
scene,  and  upon  both  sides  men  listen  eagerly  to 
his  words,  anxious  to  catch  each  sentence  of  his 
peroration,  always  delivered  with  an  artistic  care- 
which  only  one  other  member  of  Parliament  can 
equal,  and  seldom  failing  to  impress  the  House 
with  its  beauty.  Then  it  is  that  his  great  powers 
are  seen  to  the  fullest  advantage — voice  and  ac- 
cent and  gesture  all  giving  force  and  life  to  the 
words  which  he  utters. 

"And  having  upon  such  an  occasion  seen  him 
in  the  most  favorable  light,  let  the  reader  go  into 
the  House  of  Commons  during  the  *  question 
hour,'  set  apart  for  the  torture  of  ministers,  if  ho 


222  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

wishes  to  see  how  very  different  an  appearance 
he  can  make  under  other  circumstances.  The 
art  of  answering  questions  is  by  no  means  to  be 
despised  by  a  Cabinet  Minister  ;  but  of  all  the 
great  ministers  we  have  had  in  recent  times,  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  the  least  knowledge  of  that  art. 
His  great  fault  is  that  he  does  not  know  when  to 
stop.  Having,  in  reply  to  some  troublesome  ques- 
tioner, made  what  seems  to  be  an  explicit  declara- 
tion of  his  intentions,  instead  of  sitting  down,  as 
Mr.  Disraeli  would  do  under  similar  circum- 
stances, he  proceeds  forthwith  to  explain,  at  in- 
terminable length,  the  alternative  courses  open 
to  him,  the  reasons  why  none  of  those  courses  was 
suitable,  and  the  arguments  in  favor  of  that  which 
he  has  decided  to  adopt.  On  and  still  on  he  goes, 
with  an  unbroken  fluency,  and  with  a  command 
of  language  which  is  marvelous,  until  a  shade  of 
weariness  steals  over  the  faces  of  his  colleagues 
on  the  Treasury  Bench,  and  honorable  gentlemen 
opposite  unceremoniously  show  that  they  have 
heard  enough  by  entering  into  a  brisk  conversa- 
tion with  each  other." 

This  tendency  to  undue  copiousness  was  amus- 
ingly illustrated  by  Mr.  Shirley  Brooks  in  an 
article  which  he  contributed  to  the  "  Quarterly 
Review  "  in  1854.  Speaking  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
mode  of  answering  questions,  Mr.  Brooks  says  : 
"  He  points  his  finger,  as  one  who  is  not  going  to 
let  you  off  until  you  quite  understand  the  subject, 


QUALITIES  AS  AX   ORATOR.  223 

and  then  he  explains  it  to  you  at  such  length,  and 
with  such  a  copia  verborum,  that  you  feel  quite 
ashamed  of  the  unreasonable  trouble  you  have 
given  to  a  man  who  has  so  much  else  to  attend 
to.  .  .  .  His  answers  contrast  a  good  deal  with 
those  of  Lord  Palmerston.  Supposing  each  states- 
man to  be  asked  what  day  the  session  would  be 
over,  the  Viscount  would  reply  that  it  was  the  in- 
tention of  her  Majesty  to  close  the  session  on  the 
18th  of  August.  Mr.  Gladstone  would  possibly 
premise  that,  inasmuch  as  it  was  for  her  Majesty 
to  decide  upon  the  day  which  would  be  acceptable 
to  herself,  it  was  scarcely  compatible  with  Parlia- 
mentary etiquette  to  ask  the  Minister  to  anticipate 
such  a  decision  ;  but,  presuming  that  he  quite 
understood  the  purport  of  the  right  honorable 
gentleman's  question,  of  which  he  was  not  entirely 
assured,  the  completion  of  the  duties  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  the  formal  termination  of  the 
sittings  of  the  Legislature,  were  two  distinct  things. 
He  would  say  that  her  Majesty's  Minister  had  rep- 
resented to  the  Queen  that  the  former  would  prob- 
ably be  accomplished  about  the  18th  of  August, 
and  that  such  day  would  not  be  unfavorable  for 
the  latter  ;  and,  therefore,  if  the  Sovereign  should 
be  pleased  to  ratify  that  view  of  the  case,  tlu-  day 
he  had  named  would  be  probably  that  inquired 
after  by  the  right  honorable  gentleman." 

Mr.  Hay  ward  also  refers  to  this  characteristic, 
but  in  a  more  genial  spirit.     "  Mr.  Gladstone," 


224  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

he  says,  "  is  more  Ciceronian  than  Demosthenic. 
Amplification,  not  condensation,  is  his  forte  ;  but 
he  can  be  fanciful  or  pithy  on  occasion  ;  as  when, 
in  a  budget  speech,  he  compared  his  arrival  at  the 
part  in  which  the  remissions  of  taxation  were  to 
be  announced,  to  the  descent  into  the  smiling 
valleys  of  Italy  after  a  toilful  ascent  of  the  Alps  ; 
or  when  he  said  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Minis- 
ter to  stand  *  like  a  wall  of  adamant '  between  the 
people  and  the  Crown.  His  graceful  reply  to  Mr. 
Chaplin  will  compensate  for  many  a  hasty  reproof 
administered  to  assailants  whom  he  had  better 
have  left  unnoticed  : 

"  '  The  honorable  member  who  has  just  sat  down  has 
admonished  us,  and  myself  in  particular,  that  the  sense  of 
justice  is  apt  to  grow  dull  under  the  influence  of  a  long 
Parliamentary  experience.  But  there  is  one  sentiment 
which  I  can  assure  him  does  not  grow  dull  under  the  in- 
fluence of  a  long  Parliamentary  experience,  and  that  is 
the  sense  of  pleasure  when  I  hear — whether  upon  these 
benches  or  upon  those  opposite  to  me — an  able,  and  at 
the  same  time  frank,  ingenuous,  and  manly  statement  of 
opinion,  and  one  of  such  a  character  as  to  show  me  that 
the  man  who  makes  it  is  a  real  addition  to  the  intellectual 
and  moral  worth  and  strength  of  Parliament.  Having 
said  this,  I  express  my  thanks  to  the  honorable  member 
for  having  sharply  challenged  us.  It  is  right  that  we 
should  be  so  challenged,  and  we  do  not  shrink  from  it.1 " 


QUALITIES  AS  A  PARTY   LEADER.  225 

XVII. 
QUALITIES  AS  A   PARTY  LEADER. 

"WE  have  "said,"  writes  Mr.  Wemyss  Reid,* 
"  that  Mr.  Disraeli  was  a  great  party  leader.  To 
party  leadership,  in  the  ordinary  acceptation  of 
the  term,  Mr.  Gladstone  can  lay  no  claim.  Mr. 
Gladstone  has  many  of  the  best  qualities  of  a  great 
leader.  Like  Mr.  Disraeli,  he  can  inspire  on  the 
part  of  his  followers  a  high  degree  of  personal 
enthusiasm.  Out  of  doors  he  has  a  still  greater 
command  over  the  popular  feeling  than  Mr.  Dis- 
raeli ;  nor  is  that  fact  to  be  accounted  for  by  any 
question  of  politics.  For  while  Mr.  Disraeli's 
qualities,  however  much  they  may  be  admired  by 
cultivated  men  of  all  political  opinions,  are  *  caviare 
to  the  general,'  Mr.  Gladstone's  are  essentially 
popular.  He  has  the  passion,  the  enthusiasm,  tho 
fluency  of  speech,  the  apparent  simplicity  of  action 
which  are  so  dearly  loved  by  the  multitude.  His 
name  can  be  made  a  tower  of  strength  for  his 
party ;  it  might  be  adopted  as  the  watchword  or 
the  rallying  cry  of  a  nation. 

"  But  in  the  House  of  Commons  he  finds  the 
task  of  leading  a  majority  one  which  is  almost  be- 
yond his  grasp,  and  in  which  he  is  only  saved  from 
the  most  serious  blunders  by  the  watchfulness 

*  In  his  "  Cabinet  Portraits." 
15 


226  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

of  friends  and  colleagues.  Partly,  this  is  un- 
questionably due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  incapable 
of  making  any  allowances  for  the  weaknesses  of 
his  fellow  creatures.  He  has  great  strength  of  his 
own ;  his  soul,  when  he  is  engaged  on  any  ques- 
tion of  importance,  is  filled  with  an  earnestness 
which  is  almost  heroic,  and  he  sees  only  one  road 
to  the  end  at  which  he  aims — the  shortest.  Under 
these  circumstances,  he  is  incapable  of  understand- 
ing how  any  of  his  followers,  who  share  his  creed, 
and  profess  to  be  anxious  to  reach  the  same  goal 
as  himself,  can  demur  to  the  path  which  he  is 
taking.  For  their  individual  crotchets  he  makes 
no  allowances,  and  he  is  especially  regardless  of 
the  unwillingness  of  the  English  gentleman  to  be 
driven  in  any  particular  direction. 

"It  is  curious  to  s:e  as  the  result  of  this  how 
much  needless  irritation  he  succeeds  at  times  in 
causing  among  his  followers.  Over  and  over 
again  the  Liberal  clubs  have  rung  with  complaints 
of  his  overbearing  manner,  of  his  'temper' — it 
ought,  rather,  to  be  '  temperament ' — of  his  want 
of  consideration  for  the  ideas,  the  foibles,  the  pre- 
judices of  the  rank  and  file  of  his  party.  The 
general  result  is  that  he  makes  a  bad  leader.  In- 
deed, it  would  be  safer  to  say  that  he  does  not 
lead  at  all,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word ; 
others  lead  for  him.  He  has  another  weakness, 
which  is  strangely  irritating,  not  perhaps  to  the 
majority,  but,  at  any  rate,  to  a  very  considerable 


QUALITIES  AS  A  PARTY  LEADER.          227 

minority,  of  his  followers ;  wo  mean  his  abhor- 
rence of  such  a  thing  as  humor.  He  makes  jests 
himself  at  times,  and  occasionally  they  are  good 
ones ;  but  they  are  grim  a::d  ponderous  jokes, 
such  as  one  might  expect  to  circle  round  the 
board  of  a  funeral  feast  rather  than  in  any  livelier 
assemblage,  and  the  fierceness  of  manner  with 
which  they  are  delivered,  and  the  supernatural 
solemnity  of  his  countenance,  as  he  makes  them, 
render  it  necessary  that  the  man  who  ventures  to 
laugh  at  them  should  have  a  bold  heart.  As  to 
such  a  thing  as  humor  in  others,  he  can  not  see  it. 
More  than  once,  when  the  House  has  been  con- 
vulsed with  laughter,  at  some  exquisite  bit  of 
'chaff' — to  use  a  slang  phrase — on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Disraeli,  he  has  risen,  and  in  the  most  grave 
and  emphatic  manner  replied  seriously  to  the 
lively  sarcasm  of  his  foe. 

"  Then  there  is  his  '  temper. '  We  hear  a  great 
deal — as  it  seems  to  us  a  great  deal  more  than  we 
ought  to  hear — about '  Gladstone's  temper.'  Even 
Liberal  journals  and  Liberal  members  are  fond  of 
dwelling  upon  his  hasty  temper,  and  it  seems  to 
be  taken  for  granted  that  the  Prime  Minister  is 
one  of  those  peevish  and  passionate  men  who  make 
life  a  misery  to  those  around  them.  The  clubs 
dwell  with  much  emphasis  upon  his  arrogance  and 
his  domineering  disposition  ;  and  every  little  out- 
burst of  strong  feeling  which  he  displays  is  spoken 
of  as  though  it  were  nothing  more  than  that  very 


228  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

contemptible  thing — a  fit  of  anger.  As  we  have 
already  said,  it  ought,  it  appears  to  us,  to  be  Mr. 
Gladstone's  temperament  rather  than  his  temper 
that  should  be  held  accountable  for  these  occa- 
sional outbursts  of  which  so  much  is  made  by 
those  around  him.  That  he  is  one  of  those  finely 
.strung  men  of  very  tender  susceptibilities,  to 
whom  the  prick  of  a  pin  is  more  torture  than  the 
heaviest  of  downright  blows,  is  certain.  Equally 
certain  is  it  that  he  has  a  will  of  enormous 
strength — Lord  Salisbury  has  spoken  of  it  in  Par- 
liament as  an  'arrogant  will,'  and  it  is  undoubt- 
edly in  the  Cabinet  a  dominant  will — that  he 
holds,  in  a  very  considerable  degree,  the  doctrine 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means,  and  that  he  is 
in  the  heat  of  debate  the  victim  of  an  impetuosity 
which  sometimes  hurries  him  into  false  positions, 
from  which  he  is  generally  too  proud  to  retreat 
afterward. 

"  But  against  these  serious  failings  of  tempera- 
ment must  be  set  the  enthusiasm  which  is  also 
a  part  of  his  nature,  and  which,  when  he  has 
really  worked  himself  up  to  boiling-point  on  a 
great  question,  he  can  always  communicate  to  his 
followers  ;  and  the  resolution  which  enables  him 
to  persevere  with  any  work  he  has  undertaken  in 
the  face  of  difficulties  which  would  overwhelm 
most  men.  As  a  minister  in  charge  of  a  great 
measure,  one  to  which  he  has  devoted  the  whole 
strength  of  his  wonderful  mind,  he  has  not  an 


QUALITIES  AS  A  PARTY   LEADER.  229 

equal.  When  Mr.  Gladstone  gives  himself  with 
all  his  earnestness — and  he  is  the  most  earnest 
man  now  living  in  England — to  a  great  public 
question,  he  shows  a  knowledge,  an  ability,  a 
power  in  handling  it,  a  grasp  at  once  of  the  great- 
est principles  and  of  the  smallest  details,  a  readi- 
ness to  comprehend  the  objections  raised  to  par- . 
ticular  provisions  of  the  bill,  a  fertility  of  resources 
in  providing  remedies  for  those  objections,  which 
no  other  English  statesman  can  pretend  to  pos- 
sess. " 

To  a  similar  effect  is  the  testimony  of  Mr.  H. 
W.  Lucy.  Mr.  Gladstone,  he  remarks,  "has  al- 
ways been  at  a  disadvantage  as  compared  with  his 
great  rival  in  respect  of  personal  manner.  He 
was  always  too  much  in  earnest  to  pay  a  just 
measure  of  attention  to  those  little  courtesies 
which  count  for  much  even  in  the  government  of 
an  empire  on  which  the  sun  never  sets.  It  would 
perhaps  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  Lord  Bea- 
consfield  is  never  in  earnest ;  but  it  is  unques- 
tionable that  he  is  never  so  much  exhausted  by 
earnestness  that  he  forgets  to  pay  those  petty 
homages  which  cost  so  little,  and  to  the  leader  of 
a  party  are  worth  so  much.  Mr.  Gladstone's  gaze 
was  fixed  far  above  heads  of  mortal  men,  and  the 
natural  consequence  was  that,  when  he  moved 
about  his  daily  work  he  frequently  knocked  up 
aiMiiist  his  own  friends  and  trod  upon  their 
corns." 


230  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

XVIII. 

QUALITIES  AS   AN   AUTHOR. 

SPEAKING  of  those  "practical  politicians" 
who  are  at  no  pains  to  conceal  their  contempt  for 
the  "  literary  man  " — a  class  not  unknown  even 
in  England — Mr.  Henry  Dunckley  says:  "As  a 
matter  of  fact,  literature  has  strong  affinities  with 
politics,  and  when  pursued  seriously  helps  to 
make  a  man  a  'practical  politician.'  For  litera- 
ture does  not  concern  itself  Avith  abstract  specula- 
tion. It  does  not  even  profess  to  search  for  truth. 
Its  material  is  written  thought.  Its  object  is  to 
understand  the  ideas  which  have  come  down  to  us 
from  many  generations  of  thinkers,  and  to  pay 
meet  honor  to  what  is  best.  The  man  of  letters 
lives  in  communion  with  the  representative  men 
of  every  age  who  have  left  their  thoughts  in 
books ;  and  so  long  as  mind  governs  the  world 
and  thought  molds  action,  so  long  will  literature 
lie  close  to  politics.  There  is  a  sense  in  which 
the  man  of  letters  may  be  the  most  practical  of 
politicians.  He  comes  fresh  to  the  problems  of 
politics,  and  is  disposed  to  regard  them  simply  as 
problems  to  be  solved.  He  is  apt  to  fall  in  with 
the  more  ardent  temper  of  the  age,  and  to  be 
willing  to  cut  the  knot  which  can  not  be  untied. 
As  a  man  of  ideas  he  is  fertile  in  expedients. 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  AUTHOR.  231 

Hence,  at  revolutionary  eras,  or  on  those  rare  oc- 
casions when  some  upas-tree  has  to  be  cut  down, 
there  is  no  more  formidable  foe  to  Conservatism 
than  a  political  man  of  letters." 

The  truth  of  this  is  very  strikingly  exempli- 
fied in  the  career  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  has  al- 
ways found  the  field  of  politics  and  the  domain 
of  letters  lying  closely  contiguous  to  each  other. 
In  both  he  has  labored  industriously  and  garnered 
a  generous  harvest ;  and  if  he  has  carried  into 
literature  the  practicality  of  aim  and  sanity  of 
judgment  that  come  from  familiarity  with  the 
great  affairs  of  men  and  nations,  his  political  ora- 
tory has  gained  much  in  variety  and  opulence 
from  his  knowledge  and  practice  of  literature. 

The  more  important  literary  productions  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  have  been  dealt  with  elsewhere,  in 
connection  with  the  narrative  of  his  life  ;  but  be- 
sides these,  which  required  separate  mention,  he 
has  contributed  copiously  to  the  periodicals  of  the 
day,  and  has  delivered  many  addresses  on  topics 
connected  with  art,  literature,  and  education. 
Within  the  past  year  the  whole  of  his  miscella- 
neous writings — with  the  exception  of  essays  of  a 
strictly  controversial  and  classical  kind — have 
been  collected  in  a  uniform  edition  under  the  title 
of  "  Gleanings  of  Past  Years." 

They  fill  seven  volumes,  of  which  the  first  is 
entitled  "  The  Throne  and  the  Prince  Consort ; 
the  Cabinet  and  the  Constitution,"  and  contains 


232  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

no  fewer  than  four  articles  on  the  life  and  charac- 
ter of  the  Prince  Consort,  two  of  them  being  based 
upon  Mr.  Martin's  "Life."  These  are  followed 
by  three  papers  on  the  County  Franchise,  being 
a  response  to  the  deliverances  of  Mr.  Lowe  upon 
this  subject.  The  last  essay  in  the  volume  is  the 
one  entitled  "Kin  Beyond  Sea,"  which  aroused 
such  controversy  both  in  this  country  and  in  Eng- 
land on  its  appearance  originally  in  the  "  North 
American  Review"  for  September,  1878.  The 
second  volume  comprises  essays  of  a  personal  and 
literary  character,  and  is  the  most  interesting  of 
the  series.  In  it  are  excellent  critical  papers  on 
Macaulay,  Tennyson,  Blanco  White,  Dr.  Norman 
Macleod,  and  Giacomo  Leopardi,  and  an  admira- 
ble address  on  Wedgwood,  originally  delivered  at 
Burslem,  Staffordshire,  on  the  occasion  of  laying 
the  foundation  stone  of  the  Wedgwood  Institute. 
The  latter  is  especially  valuable  as  showing  Mr. 
Gladstone's  knowledge  of  and  sympathy  for  art. 
The  third  volume  contains  essays  of  an  historical 
and  speculative  character,  the  most  important  of 
them  being  a  series  on  Ecce  Homo,  which  are 
written  with  eloquence  and  power.  The  next 
volume  ("'Foreign  Essays")  deals  with  topics  of 
recent  or  current  interest  in  politics  and  states- 
manship, and  contains,  besides  the  letters  to  Lord 
Aberdeen  on  the  Neapolitan  prisons,  articles  on 
"Germany,  France,  and  England,"  on  "The 
Hellenic  Factor  in  the  Eastern  Problem,"  on 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  AUTHOR.  233 

Montenegro,  and  on  "Aggression  in  Egypt  and 
Freedom  in  the  East."  The  remaining  volumes 
consist  of  essays  mostly  (but  not  exclusively)  of 
a  theological  or  ecclesiastical  character.  In  the 
seventh  volume  are  the  Chapter  of  Autobiography, 
hitherto  referred  to,  the  admirable  Inaugural  Ad- 
dress delivered  to  the  students  of  Edinburgh  Uni- 
versity in  1860,  and  the  address  on  "  The  Place 
of  Ancient  Egypt  in  the  Providential  Order." 

The  most  satisfactory  estimate  of  these  mis- 
cellaneous writings,  and  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  quality 
as  a  man  of  letters,  that  we  have  seen,  appeared 
a  few  months  ago  in  "  Eraser's  Magazine,"  and 
from  this  article  we  shall  quote  the  more  impor- 
tant passages  : 

"  Perhaps  the  first,  and  in  some  respects  tho 
highest,  intellectual  quality  which  marks  these 
essays,  is  their  varied  energy  of  thought.  There 
is  no  sign  of  weariness,  of  languor,  or  even  re- 
pose in  them,  but  everywhere  the  throb  of  a  fresh, 
powerful,  and  unsated  intellectual  impulse.  A 
genuine  life  of  thought  moves  in  them  all.  It  is 
impossible  for  any  serious  reader  not  to  be  touched 
by  their  depth  and  force  of  sentiment,  and  tho 
frequent  vigor  and  eloquence,  if  also  the  occas- 
ional clumsiness  and  complexity,  of  their  lan- 
guage. Mr.  Gladstone  writes  always  as  from  a 
full  mind,  in  this  respect  alone  taking  at  once  a 
higher  position  than  that  of  many  contemporary 
writers.  It  is  no  conventional  or  professional 


234  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

impulse  that  animates  his  peri ;  he  lias  always 
something  to  say,  and* which  he  is  eager  to  say ; 
he  is  so  moved  by  his  thought,  whatever  it  is, 
that  he  brings  all  the  forces  of  his  mind  to  bear 
upon  it.  He  never  dallies,  seldom  pauses  over  a 
subject ;  still  less  does  he,  after  a  prevalent  mod- 
ern fashion,  touch  it  all  round  with  satiric  and 
half-real  allusion,  as  if  it  were  rather  a  bore  to 
touch  it  at  all,  and  not  of  much  consequence 
what  conclusion  the  writer  or  the  reader  came  to, 
after  all.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  persiflage  in 
any  of  the  essays.  There  is,  in  fact,  far  too  little 
play  of  mind — too  much  of  the  Scotch  quality  of 
weight.  It  is  well  to  be  earnest.  In  this  respect 
it  is  nothing  less  than  a  relief  to  turn  from  the 
silly  and  inconsecutive  sentence-making  of  much 
of  our  present  writing  to  Mr.  Gladstone's  moving 
and  powerful  pages.  But  they  are  frequently 
fatiguing  from  the  very  weight  and  hurry  of  their 
energy.  And  if  sentence-making  in  itself  be  but 
a  poor  business  with  which  no  man  will  occupy 
himself  who  has  much  to  say,  it  is  yet,  so  far,  an 
indispensable  element  in  all  literature.  And  Mr. 
Gladstone,  as  we  may  have  occasion  to  point  out 
before  we  close,  too  often  neglects  it.  He  lacks 
the  special  instinct  of  style,  or  the  repressive  art 
which  restricts  the  outflow  of  energy  in  all  the 
highest  writers,  as  indeed  in  every  creation  of 
genius  —  withdrawing  the  glowing  conception 
within  the  "mold  of  form."  But  of  this  again. 


.QUALITIES  AS  AN  AUTHOR.  235 

In  the  mean  time  it  is  not  the  negative,  but  the 
positive  aspect  of  his  writings  that  we  are  no- 
ticing. 

"  The  quality  of  energy  characteristic  of  Mr. 
Gladstone's  essays  is  impressed  on  them  from  the 
first.  It  is  perhaps  their  chief  literary  quality 
to  the  last — and  tne  volumes  before  us  cover  a 
period  of  not  less  than  thirty-five  years.  It  would 
have  been  better  in  some  respects  if  the  author 
had  contented  himself  with  a  chronological  ar- 
rangement. But  there  are  few  writers  who  less 
stand  in  need  of  being  estimated  chronologically. 
In  expounding  the  '  Evangelical  Movement '  in 
1879,  he  is  very  much  the  same  expositor  as 
when  he  dealt  at  length  with  *  The  Present  As- 
pect of  the  Church'  in  1843.  If  in  the  former 
paper  his  attitude  is  different,  he  yet  speaks  in 
both  from  the  same  background  of  substantial 
conviction.  His  views  are  as  fully  formed  in  the 
one  case  as  in  the  other.  Nothing  is  more  re- 
markable, in  fact,  in  these  essays  than  the  im- 
movable background  of  opinion  which  everywhere 
crops  through  them.  Whatever  may  have  been 
the  vacillations  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  political  career, 
there  has  been  but  little  change  in  his  more  in- 
ward and  higher  thought.  We  do  not  know  any 
other  writer  of  the  day  who  has  remained  more 
steadfast  through  a  generation  and  a  half  to  the 
same  central  principles. 

"  Nor  is  it  merely  that  there  is  little  change 


236  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

or  growth  in  his  central  thought ;  there  is  but 
little  change  in  his  manner  as  a  writer.  He  writes 
with  the  same  rhetorical  fullness  in  the  end  as  in 
the  beginning — with  the  same  energy  and  glow, 
and  excessive,  at  times  inelegant,  movement.  If 
there  is  any  difference  in  this  respect,  it  is  cer- 
tainly not  in  favor  of  the  papers  of  his  more 
mature  years.  For  with  the  same  force  and  inten- 
sity of  thought  these  papers  are,  upon  the  whole, 
less  duly  proportioned,  less  harmonized.  More 
literary  care,  apparently,  has  been  taken  in  the 
preparation  of  the  remarkable  series  which  fill 
the  fruitful  decade  following  1843  than  in  some 
of  his  recent  productions.  We  would  notice  for 
their  literary  characteristics  the  articles  on  *  Blanco 
White,'  in  1845,  and  on  -'Leopardi,'  in  1850; 
and  we  must  add  to  these,  although  of  later 
origin,  the  articles  on  'Tennyson'  and  'Ma- 
caulay.'  If  any  one  wishes  to  see  Mr.  Gladstone 
at  his  best  as  a  man  of  letters,  let  him  read  these 
articles,  especially  the  two  last  mentioned.  They 
are  intense  and  powerful,  radiant  with  all  his 
peculiar  energy  of  conception  ;  but  they  are  also 
stamped  by  a  special  impress  of  literary  form. 
The  vivid  and  impetuous  march  of  thought  is 
held  within  bounds.  The  writer  is  less  swept 
along  by  the  force  of  his  ideas ;  the  rein  is  laid 
upon  them,  and  they  beat  step  to  a  more  har- 
monious pace.  .  .  . 

"Next   to    the    energy  of    Mr.    Gladstone's 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  AUTHOR.  337 

writing  in  an  ascending  scale  may  be  mentioned 
its  constant  elevation  and  frequent  ideality  of 
sentiment.  On  the  descending  scale  his  energy  is 
apt  to  pass  into  sheer  intensity  and  rhetoric.  The 
'  Never,  never,  never,'  which  he  borrows  from 
Lord  Chatham,  and  would  even  emphasize  in  its 
repetition,  is  the  note  of  a  manner  which  rises 
naturally  to  vehemence,  and  the  strong  rush  of 
words  sometimes  passes  off  into  shrillness.  He  can 
realize  for  the  time  little  or  nothing  but  the  idea 
which  moves  him,  and  it  expands  and  glows  till, 
like  an  illuminated  cloud,  it  fills  the  whole  heaven 
of  his  thought  and  casts  on  his  page  an  intense 
shadow  '  dark  with  excessive  bright.'  But  his 
manner  of  thought,  if  rhetorical  and  vehement, 
is  always  elevated.  It  never  sinks  to  frivolity, 
seldom  to  commonplace  ;  it  ranges  at  a  high  level. 
'Whatsoever  in  religion  is  holy  and  sublime,  in 
virtue  amiable  or  grave  ;  whatsoever  hath  passion 
or  admiration  in  all  the  changes  of  that  which  is 
called  fortune  from  without  or  the  wily  subtilties 
and  reflexes  of  men's  thoughts  from  within' — 
such  things  are  the  main  haunt  of  our  author's 
literary  spirit,  and  his  pen  aspires  to  describe 
them  with  a  'solid  and  treatable  smoothness.' 
Even  Milton  had  no  higher  conception  of  the 
business  of  literature  than  he  has,  and  his  example 
so  far,  no  less  than  in  the  thoroughness  and  energy 
of  his  work,  is  of  special  value.  For  that  we  are 
'moving  downward'  in  this  respect,  if  not  in 


238  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

others,  can  hardly  be  doubted.  Lightness  of 
touch,  if  it  be  also  skillful  and  delicate,  is  a  dis- 
tinct merit.  It  saves  trouble.  It  attracts  casual 
readers  who  might  otherwise  not  read  at  all.  It 
soon  passes,  indeed,  into  a  trick,  and  becomes  the 
feeble  if  pointed  weapon  of  every  newspaper 
critic.  But  when  to  lightness  of  touch  are  added 
lightness  of  subject  and  frequent  emptiness  of  all 
higher  thought,  the  descent  becomes  marked  in- 
deed ;  and  literature,  from  being  the  lofty  pursuit 
imaged  by  the  great  Puritan,  becomes  a  mere 
pastime  in  no  degree  higher  than  many  others. 

"  Mr.  Gladstone  never  descends  to  the  flippant 
facility  to  which  the  mere  passions  and  gossip  of 
the  hour  are  an  adequate  theme.  He  not  only 
deals  in  all  his  essays  with  worthy  subjects,  but 
he  always  deals  with  them  in  a  worthy  manner, 
so  far  at  least  as  his  tastes  and  sympathies  are 
concerned.  If  by  no  means  always  true  or  just 
in  his  judgments,  it  is  yet  always  what  is  noble 
in  character,  and  pure  and  lofty  in  sentiment,  and 
dignified  in  feeling  that  engages  his  admiration. 
His  pen  fastens  naturally  on  the  higher  attributes 
of  mind  and  action  in  any  figure  that  he  draws  ; 
and  this  too,  as  in  the  sketches  of  Lord  Macaulay, 
the  Prince  Consort,  and  Dr.  Norman  Macleod, 
where  it  is  plain,  he  has  only  an  imperfect  sym- 
pathy with  the  type  of  character  as  it  comes  from 
his  pen.  On  this  very  account  these  portraits  are 
the  more  interesting,  and  test  more  directly 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  AUTHOR.  239 

the  genuineness  of  his  high  capacity  of  appre- 
ciation. .  .  . 

"  We  have  spoken  of  the  ideality,  no  less  than 
the  elevation  of  sentiment,  which  frequently  marks 
Mr.  Gladstone's  'Gleanings.'  He  is  not  merely 
attracted  by  what  is  noble  and  great  in  sentiment, 
and  all  the  fairer  traits  of  our  higher  nature,  but 
there  is  an  elevated  and  poetic  glow  at  times  in 
such  criticisms  as  those  on  Leopard i  and  Tenny- 
son, which  carry  their  author  beyond  the  mere 
critical  sphere,  and  show  that  he  is  capable  of 
being  touched  to  finer  issues.  As  a  student  of 
Homer  and  Dante,  he  is  familiar  with  the  loftiest 
and  richest  poetic  ideals  ;  and  these  ideals  have 
evidently  sunk  deep  into  his  mind.  They  have 
bred  in  him  a  kindred  enthusiasm,  and,  what  is 
more,  an  enthusiasm  which  is  capable  of  being 
fired  alike  by  the  heroism  of  Hellenic  and  the 
humilities  of  Christian  virtue.  He  is  entirely  free 
from  the  classical  furore  which  has  been  rampant 
in  many  quarters  of  late,  and  whose  craze  is  a  re- 
turn to  mere  pagan  ideals.  Unlike  Leopardi  and 
the  pessimist  school,  which  may  be  said  to  date 
from  him,  he  has  fed  his  genius  '  on  the  Mount  of 
Zion '  not  less  than  '  on  the  Mount  of  the  Par- 
thenon,' '  by  the  brook  of  Ccdron '  no  less  than  '  by 
the  waters  of  Ilissus.'  While  recognizing  the 
prophetic  element  in  Homer,  and  enraptured  by 
his  exquisite  creations — and  no  one  has  described 
them  with  a  more  vivid  and  brightly  tinctured 


240  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

pencil — he  yet  bows  before  the  higher  prophetic 
genius  of  Isaiah,  and  sees  in  the  marvelous  ideals 
of  Christian  poets,  from  Dante  to  Tennyson,  a 
more  perfect  bloom  of  the  human  mind  and 
character.  .  .  . 

"  But  we  must  draw  this  paper  to  a  close  with 
a  special  glance  at  Mr.  Gladstone's  literary  style. 
It  is  powerful,  flexible,  and  elaborately  if  not 
gracefully  expressive.  It  has  all  the  vigor  and 
swell  of  the  substance  of  his  thought.  But,  just 
as  he  often  seems  to  be  thinking  on  his  legs  and 
casting  forth  in  an  impetuous  cataract  the  current 
of  his  ideas,  so  does  his  style  move  with  uneasy, 
and  swaying,  and  often  too  vehement  force — a 
force  always  more  or  less  rhetorical,  often  pictured 
and  eloquent,  but  sometimes  singularly  clumsy, 
and  seldom  facile  or  delicate.  Yet  he  surprises 
the  reader  at  times  by  a  happy  figure,  touched 
lightly  and  beautifully,  as  when  he  says  of  the 
confidential  outpourings  of  Bishop  Patteson,  in 
his  letters  to  his  sister  at  home,  that  they  were 
'  like  flowers  caught  in  their  freshness,  and  per- 
fectly preserved  in  color  and  in  form.' 

"We  confess  to  having  formed  a  higher  idea 
than  we  had  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  powers  as  a  mere 
writer  by  an  attentive  perusal  of  these  '  Glean- 
ings.' The  first  impression  one  gets  of  his  style 
is  disappointing.  It  looks  fatiguing.  It  does  not 
invite,  nor  does  it  readily  lead  the  reader  along, 
even  when  he  has  yielded  to  the  impulse  and  felt 


QUALITIES  AS  AN  AUTHOR.  241 

the  fascination  of  a  strong  mind.  But  at  last  it 
lays  hold  of  the  attention.  We  are  caught  in  its 
sweep,  and  made  to  feel  that  we  are  in  the  hands 
of  a  master  who  knows  his  subject  and  will  not 
let  us  go  till  he  has  brought  us  to  some  share  of 
his  own  knowledge.  We  may  feel  not  unfre- 
quently  that  he  is  far  more  subtile  than  true,  more 
ingenious  in  theory  than  penetrating  in  insight, 
more  intent  on  making  out  a  case  than  in  going 
to  the  root  of  a  difficulty  ;  that  he  is  conventional 
rather  than  critical,  and  traditional  where  he 
ought  to  be  historical ;  still,  there  is  the  glow  of 
an  intense  genius  everywhere,  and  the  splendor 
of  a  rhetoric  which  often  rises  into  passion  and 
never  degenerates  into  meanness.  ...  If  we  are 
to  estimate  writing  not  merely  by  the  momentary 
pleasure  it  gives,  but  by  the  elevation  and  moral 
as  well  as  mental  stimulus  it  imparts,  we  must 
attach  a  high  value  to  many  of  Mr.  Gladstone's 
essays.  It  would  be  difficult  to  say  how  far  they 
may  survive  as  monuments  of  his  literary  genius. 
They  are  more  likely  to  do  so,  we  believe,  than 
his  Homeric  speculations,  labors  of  love  and 
special  knowledge  as  these  are.  But,  whatever 
may  be  their  fate,  they  are  remarkable  and  mar- 
velously  interesting  as  products  of  literary  de- 
votion and  ambition  in  a  mind  of  intense  activity, 
amid  the  pauses  of  a  great  public  career." 
16 


242  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

XIX. 

PERSONAL  TEAITS. 

IN  the  case  of  a  living  man  it  is  not  possible  if 
we  would  (nor  would  it  be  justifiable  if  we  could) 
to  make  those  intimate  personal  revelations  which 
constitute  the  chief  charm  of  biography  ;  and  Mr. 
Gladstone,  though  he  has  lived,  as  it  were,  in  the 
full  blaze  of  publicity,  has  been  singularly  success- 
ful in  protecting  his  private  and  domestic  life 
from  the  intrusions  of  vulgar  curiosity.  For  this 
very  excellent  reason,  therefore,  the  present  chap- 
ter must  necessarily  be  somewhat  meagre  and 
inadequate. 

Of  Mr.  Gladstone's  personal  appearance  when, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  he  was  first  getting  his 
feet  firmly  planted  upon  the  ladder  of  fame,  we 
have  already  given  a  sketch  in  Chapter  III.  Of 
the  impression  which  in  his  later  years  he  makes 
upon  the  beholder,  Mr.  T.  W.  Higginson  gives  the 
following  interesting  glimpse  :  "When  an  Amer- 
ican, on  visiting  .the  House  of  Commons  for  the 
first  time,  studies  with  eagerness  the  face  of  the 
great  Liberal  statesman,  his  first  impression  must 
be,  I  should  think,  not  so  much  '  How  fine  !  how 
intellectual ! '  as  '  how  un-English  !  how  Amer- 
ican ! '  Mr.  Disraeli  himself,  though  far  remoter 
from  the  prevailing  English  type,  is  hardly  more 


PERSONAL  TRAITS.  343 

distinctly  separated  from  it  than  is  Mr.  Gladstone. 
The  more  highly  charged  nervous  organization, 
the  greater  sensitiveness,  the  mobility,  the  subtlety 
of  mind  that  we  habitually  attribute,  with  or  with- 
out reason,  to  the  American  type — these  all  are 
visible,  at  the  very  first  glance,  in  him.  For  my- 
self, on  the  only  occasion  when  I  had  the  honor 
of  meeting  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  own  house,  I  was 
haunted  throughout  the  interview  with  an  increas- 
ing resemblance  to  another  face  and  voice,  till  at 
last  it  almost  seemed  that  it  was  Ralph  Waldo 
Emerson  with  whom  I  was  talking." 

Still  more  vivid  is  the  following  passage  from 
an  English  writer  who  some  years  ago  described  the 
personnel  of  the  Gladstone  Government  :  "  When 
Mr.  Gladstone  first  entered  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, in  the  heyday  of  his  youth,  his  looks  earned 
for  him  the  sobriquet,  which  he  preserved  in  effect 
for  some  years  afterward,  of  '  Handsome  Glad- 
stone.' The  handsome  looks  are  gone,  but  it  is  a 
noble  face  for  all  that — a  nobler  countenance  than 
it  was  then  in  its  early  bloom  and  freshness. 
Lined  with  thought ;  paled  by  years  of  toil ;  the 
dark  hair  thinned ;  the  dark  eyes  caverned  under 
brows  habitually  contracted — it  is  essentially  the 
face  of  a  senator,  one  of  the  'Patre*  Conscripti.' 
And  there  are  subtle  traits  of  character,  readily 
enough  discernible  at  a  glance  by  those  who  care 
to  look  for  them,  subtle  though  they  are,  in  those 
nervous  lineaments  ;  a  blending  of  generosity  and 


044  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

scorn  in  the  play  of  the  nostrils,  an  alternating 
severity  and  sweetness  in  the  mobile  mouth.  It  is 
a  face  betraying  every  emotion,  concealing  nothing 
— incapable  of  concealment.  We  speak  of  this  as 
of  something  not  by  any  means  to  a  debater's,  and 
still  less  to  a  party  leader's  advantage.  It  is  a 
very  considerable  and  perpetual  disadvantage  to 
Mr.  Gladstone.  He  '  wears  his  heart  upon  his 
sleeve,  for  daws  to  peck  at.'  He  will  visibly 
writhe  under  an  ungenerous  taunt  while  it  is  being 
uttered.  His  visage  darkens  with  indignation 
while  his  adversary  is  yet  speaking. " 

And  Mr.  Wemyss  Reid  says  :  "  Mr.  Gladstone's 
face  differs  strangely  from  that  of  his  great  rival. 
It  is  the  most  mobile  and  expressive  countenance 
in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  it  can  no  more  con- 
ceal the  thought  flitting  through  the  brain  behind 
it  than  the  mirror  can  refuse  to  reflect  the  figure 
placed  before  it ;  it  is  incapable  of  reserve  or  of 
mystery ;  hope,  fear,  anxiety,  exultation,  anger, 
pleasure,  each  of  these  in  turn  is  '  writ  large  '  upon 
it,  so  that  the  spectator  watching  it  closely  can 
read  in  it,  as  in  a  book,  the  varying  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  him  to  whom  it  belongs.  And  the  face 
is  in  the  highest  degree  characteristic  of  the  man. 
There  never  was  a  statesman  more  impulsive  than 
the  present  Prime  Minister  ;  never  one  who  took 
less  pains  to  hide  the  workings  of  his  mind  from 
those  around  him,  or  who  was  more  determined  to 
wear  his  heart  upon  his  sleeve.  His  openness  in 


PERSONAL  TRAITS.  245 

this  respect  is  at  once  his  fault  and  his  virtue.  It 
is  an  error  in  any  man  to  whom  are  committed 
great  destinies,  and  the  policy  of  a  mighty  nation, 
and  we  can  not  wonder  that  his  critics  should  often 
have  complained  of  it.  But  it  has  at  the  same 
time  redeemed  not  a  few  of  the  mistakes  and  incon- 
sistencies of  his  career,  and  has  given  the  world 
evidence  of  the  fact  that,  however  impulsive 
and  at  times  imprudent  he  may  be,  he  is  at  least 
thoroughly  sincere,  even  in  his  most  impulsive 
actions." 

For  many  years  past  Mr.  Gladstone's  residence, 
when  not  in  London,  has  been  at  Hawarden,  a 
property  which  came  to  him  through  his  wife. 
"Hawarden  Castle,"  says  Mr.  Lucy,  "is  charm- 
ingly situated  on  the  estuary  of  the  Dee.  It  was 
for  a  long  time  the  property  of  the  Stanley  family, 
but  after  the  execution  of  the  Earl  of  Derby,  in 
1651,  it  was  purchased  by  Sergeant  Glynne,  who 
seems  to  have  held  the  scales  of  justice  so  evenly 
that  he  was  made  Lord  Chief  Justice  by  Cromwell, 
and  knighted  by  Charles  II.  The  entrance  lodges 
are  about  six  miles  from  Chester,  and  one  mile 
from  the  castle.  The  road  through  the  park  is 
open  to  the  public,  and  is  of  singular  beauty.  The 
castle  is  about  a  century  old,  but  was  remodeled 
in  1809,  the  year  when  Mr.  Gladstone  was  born, 
and  a  Tudor  character,  as  the  style  was  then  under- 
stood, was  given  to  it.  Hawarden  Church  is  a 
large  and  very  fine  example  of  the  architecture  of 


246  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

the  early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  though 
some  parts  appear  to  be  considerably  older ;  but  it 
suffered  from  a  fire  comparatively  recently,  and  a 
great  part  of  it  has  been  rebuilt.  The  rectory  is 
one  of  the  most  valuable  in  the  kingdom,  and  is 
held  by  a  son  of  Mr.  Gladstone's,  who,  if  the  tes- 
timony of  the  very  extensive  parish  is  to  be  relied 
on,  is  as  hard-working  and  simple  in  his  way  of 
life  as  ever  Goldsmith's  country  parson  was.  The 
Hawarden  estates,  which  extend  for  some  miles 
along  the  estuary  of  the  Dee,  contain  many  land- 
scapes of  great  beauty,  but,  though  easily  accessi- 
ble, they  are  little  visited  by  artists  or  tourists. 
In  the  park  are  the  remains  of  the  ancient  resi- 
dence :  some  of  the  foundations  are  of  great  anti- 
quity. It  was  granted  by  William  the  Conqueror 
to  his  nephew,  Hugh  Lupus,  Earl  of  Chester,  and 
it  conferred  the  title  of  Earl  of  Chester  upon  the 
royal  family.  Some  of  the  remains  would  seem  to 
indicate  the  architecture  that  prevailed  in  Henry 
IPs  time." 

Mr.  Gladstone's  study  at  Hawarden  is  a  hand- 
some room  crammed  with  books,  busts,  pictures, 
and  other  bric-a-brac,  and  having  ivy-hung  win- 
dows commanding  a  beautiful  prospect.  His 
table  is  always  covered  with  manuscripts,  and  his 
chairs  heaped  with  newspapers.  "  The  extent  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  daily  intellectual  labors,"  says 
Mr.  Smith,  "  has  been  matter  of  very  general 
surprise.  Tliat  which  he  has  accomplished  was, 


PERSONAL  TRAITS.  247 

indeed,  only  possible  under  strict  rule  and  method. 
From  his  earliest  years  of  study  each  day  has  seen 
fulfilled  its  due  share  of  work.  At  Oxford  he  was 
an  exception  to  undergraduate  life,  and  'did  not 
break  off  his  morning  studies  at  the  regulation 
luncheon  hour  of  one  o'clock.  It  mattered  not 
where  he  was,  in  college  rooms  or  in  country 
mansion  ;  from  10  A.  M.  to  2  P.  M.  no  one  ever 
saw  William  Ewart  Gladstone.  He  was  locked 
up  with  his  books.  From  the  age  of  eighteen 
to  the  age  of  twenty-one  he  never  missed  these 
precious  four  hours  except  when  he  was  traveling. 
And  his  ordeal  in  the  evening  was  not  less  severe. 
Eight  o'clock  saw  him  once  more  engaged  in  a 
stiff  bout  with  Aristotle,  or  plunged  deep  in  the 
text  of  Thucydides.'  The  habit  of  assimilating 
knowledge  has  been  constant  with  him,  in  all 
places  and  at  all  seasons,  from  the  first  day  of  his 
college  life  until  now.  He  has  always  been  an 
early  man,  and — quoting  now  from  an  interesting 
article  which  appeared  shortly  after  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's resignation  of  the  Liberal  leadership— 
'  since  his  retirement  in  Flintshire,  he  is,  if  pos- 
sible, earlier  than  before.  Shortly  after  eight 
o'clock  in  the  morning  he  walks  down  to  prayus 
in  the  village  church.  Early  devotion  and  break- 
fast over,  the  remainder  of  the  morning,  till  tho 
gong  sounds  at  two  o'clock,  is  devoted  to  work — 
to  reading,  writing,  meditation,  or  to  the  perform- 
ance of  arithmetical  feuU  which  no  Cabinet  Min- 


248  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

ister  has  ever  surpassed.'  Luncheon  over,  there 
is  more  reading ;  or,  'if  there  be  visitors  iii  the 
house,  pleasant  gossip ;  or,  if  the  weather  be 
tempting,  long  walks  to  be  taken,  or  tough  oaks 
to  be  hewn.  Loving  air  and  exercise,  Mr.  Glad- 
stone is  a  singularly  temperate  man  in  meat  and 
drink.  Still,  he  is  only  abstemious,  not  ascetic. 
A  glass  or  two  of  claret  at  dinner,  and  sometimes 
a  glass  of  port,  that  nectar  of  orators,  satisfy  his 
very  moderate  requirements  for  stimulant.'  His 
recreation  in  retirement  is  such  as  befits  a  strong 
and  muscular  frame.  Mr.  Gladstone  wields  the 
axe  with  the  skill  of  an  experienced  workman. 
'  Sawing  wood  has  long  been  known  as  an  excel- 
lent exercise,  but  it  is  dull  work  compared  with 
the  pleasure  of  striking  at  a  huge  tree,  putting 
out  of  question  the  possibility  of  mentally  coup- 
ling with  each  well-aimed  blow  the  destruction  of 
a  political  opponent.  In  wood-cutting  deshabille, 
so  little  does  the  lord  of  the  soil  look  like  himself 
that  he  has  often  been  accosted  by  "practical" 
hands,  and  received,  meekly  as  is  his  wont,  a  lesson 
from  them,  the  practical  man  remaining  all  the 
while  ignorant  of  the  manner  of  man  he  was 
addressing.  In  his  moments  of  mental  and  phys- 
ical relaxation,  the  Napoleon  of  oratory  (whose 
heavy  artillery  is  always  brought  up  at  the  right 
moment)  and  the  champion  of  amateur  woodmen 
vanish  into  the  genial  host,  whose  high  spirits 
break  out  at  every  moment,  and  who  is  never  more 


PERSONAL  TRAITS.  249 

rejoiced  than  when  he  can  play  a  comedy  part  on 
his  own  or  his  son's  lawn.'  Further,  it  has  been 
observed  that  the  frank  and  free  manner  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  his  liberality  in  throwing  open  Hawar- 
den  Park  to  the  public,  and  the  deep  interest  he 
takes  in  all  local  improvements,  '  have  made  him 
one  of  the  best  beloved  of  English  celebrities.  On 
Sunday  morning,  as  the  bells  of  Hawarden  Church 
ring  out  through  the  heavy  autumn  air,  vigorous 
pedestrians  may  be  observed  marching  up  the  hill, 
their  dusty  raiment  and  shiny  countenances  pro- 
claiming that  their  walk  to  church  has  been  a 
long  one.  This  determination  toward  Hawarden 
as  a  place  of  devotion  is  not  owing  to  a  dearth  of 
churches  in  the  neighborhood.  There  are  churches 
at  Mold  and  elsewhere,  but  in  none  of  these  are  the 
lessons  read  in  the  sonorous  tones  of  the  ex-Premier 
of  England.'" 

Mr.  Smith  informs  us  further  that  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's personal  charity  is  proverbial,  and  that 
his  generosity  has  not  been  bounded  by  pecuniary 
limits.  He  is  among  those  who  believe  in  Chris- 
tianity as  a  living,  vitalizing  force  in  the  individ- 
ual, and  he  has  endeavored  practically  to  illustrate 
its  influence.  He  is  always  accessible  to  those  who 
are  in  need  of  help  and  advice  ;  and  it  is  stated 
that  "even  when  Prime  Minister  of  England  ho 
has  been  found  in  the  humblest  houses,  reading  to 
the  sick  or  dying  consolatory  passages  of  Scripture 
in  his  soft,  melodious  tones."  His  service  to  the 


250  WILLIAM   EWART   GLADSTONE. 

State,  too,  has  been  marked  by  the  same  unself- 
ishness as  his  private  life.  "When  Prime  Min- 
ister he  resisted  a  motion  for  increase  of  salary  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  when  he  left  office 
he  sought  for  no  pension,  although  the  numerous 
claims  upon  him  were  understood  to  have  com- 
pelled the  sale  of  his  very  remarkable  collection 
of  valuable  china  and  articles  of  vertu.  ...  We 
have  reason  to  believe  that  when  he  retired  from 
office,  and  made  an  investigation  into  the  condi- 
tion of  his  affairs,  Mr.  Gladstone  discovered  that 
the  house  in  Carlton  Terrace,  which  he  had  in- 
habited for  eighteen  years,  was  beyond  his  means. 
He  therefore  parted  with  it,  and  obtained  a  smaller 
house  in  Harley  Street.  This  change  from  a 
roomy  mansion  to  one  comparatively  humble 
entailed  almost  as  a  necessary  consequence  part- 
ing with  his  collections,  though,  as  we  have  seen, 
this  was  also  part  of  the  prudential  plan.  The 
loss  of  his  collections — the  gradual  accumulation 
of  years — must  have  been  a  great  one,  for  his 
lively  appreciation  of  art  has  not  been  confined  to 
public  addresses  on  that  subject;  books,  china, 
and  pictures  are  treasures  which  he  has  ever  re- 
garded with  peculiar  affection,  and  which  he  has 
always  delighted  to  have  around  him  in  lavish 
profusion." 

Mr.  Justin  McCarthy  thinks  that  the  princi- 
pal defect  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  mind  is  "a  lack  of 
simplicity,  a  tendency  to  over-refining  and  super- 


PERSONAL  TRAITS.  251 

subtle  argument."  And  Mr.  A.  Hayward  says  : 
"The  extreme  subtlety  of  his  mind,  while  supply- 
ing him  with  an  inexhaustible  store  of  replies  and 
rejoinders,  caused  him  to  rely  too  much  on  over- 
refined  distinctions  and  on  casuistical  modes  of 
reasoning.  During  Garibaldi's  visit  to  London, 
it  was  suggested  that  a  noble  and  richly  jointured 
widow,  who  was  much  about  with  him,  should 
marry  him.  To  the  objection  that  he  had  a  wife 
living,  the  ready  answer  was,  '  Oh,  he  must  get 
Gladstone  to  explain  her  away."' 

At  the  same  time,  neither  this  over-subtlety, 
nor  his  great  change  of  political  views,  has  ever 
induced  any  one  seriously  to  question  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's sincerity  and  honesty  of  motive.  Says  Mr. 
McCarthy  :  "The  common  taunts  addressed  to 
public  men  who  have  changed  their  opinions 
were  hardly  ever  applied  to  him.  Even  his  ene- 
mies felt  that  the  one  idea  always  inspired  him — 
a  conscientious  anxiety  to  do  the  right  thing. 
None  accused  him  of  being  one  of  the  politicians 
who  mistake,  as  Victor  Hugo  says,  a  weathercock 
for  a  flag.  With  many  qualities  which  soi-mrd 
hardly  suited  to  a  practical  politician  ;  with  a 
sensitive  and  eager  temper,  like  that  of  Canning, 
and  a  turn  for  theological  argument  that  as  a  rule 
Englishmen  do  not  love  in  a  statesman  ;  with  an 
impetuosity  that  often  carried  him  far  :i 
and  a  deficiency  of  those  genial  social  qualities 
that  go  so  far  to  make  a  public  success  in 


252  WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE. 

land,  Mr.  Gladstone  maintained  through  the 
whole  of  his  career  a  reputation  against  which 
there  was  hardly  a  serious  cavil.  The  worst  thing 
that  was  said  of  him  was  that  he  was  too  impul- 
sive, and  that  his  intelligence  was  too  restless. 
He  was  an  essayist,  a  critic,  a  Homeric  scholar ; 
dilettante  in  art,  music,  and  old  china  ;  he  was  a 
theological  controversialist ;  he  was  a  political 
economist,  a  financier,  a  practical  administrator 
whose  gift  of  mastering  details  has  hardly  ever 
been  equaled ;  he  was  a  statesman  and  an  orator. 
No  man  could  attempt  so  many  things  and  not 
occasionally  make  himself  the  subject  of  a  sneer. 
The  intense  gravity  and  earnestness  of  Glad- 
stone's mind  always,  however,  saved  him  from 
the  special  penalty  of  such  versatility ;  no  sati- 
rist described  him  as  not  one  but  all  mankind's 
epitome." 

According  to  Mr.  Henry  Dunckley,  the  most 
striking  feature  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  character  is 
expressed  in  the  word  force,  power  in  action. 
"He  received  as  a  happy  inheritance  a  larger 
stock  than  most  men  of  what  George  Eliot  de- 
scribes as  'solar  energy.'  He  was  born  in  and 
still  inhabits  a  tropical  clime,  under  the  sun's 
'director  ray,'  and  a  temperature  which,  with 
others,  would  pass  for  fever  heat  is  his  normal 
elevation.  It  is  this  that  has  made  him  what  he 
is.  But  for  this  endowment,  supposing  all  the 
rest  of  his  intellectual  character  to  have  been  the 


PERSONAL  TRAITS.  353 

same,  the  result  would  have  been  widely  different. 
His  contemplative  tendencies  might  have  led  him 
to  some  pious  retreat,  where  he  would  have  medi- 
tated upon  the  problems  of  the  universe  and  the 
mysteries  of  the  Church ;  or  if  he  had  taken  to 
politics,  he  might  have  been  known  as  a  culti- 
vated speaker,  and  have  discharged  with  credit 
the  duties  of  a  Junior  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  but 
he  would  never  have  become  the  foremost  of  Eng- 
land's living  statesmen.  With  this  blending  of  a 
contemplative  spirit  and  a  restless  thirst  for  ac- 
tion, if  he  had  lived  in  the  Middle  Ages  he  would 
probably  have  found  his  way  to  the  cloister,  with 
such  men  as  Lanfranc  and  Anselm.  He  would 
have  ruled  his  order,  the  monks  would  not  have 
led  a  quiet  life,  and  refractory  monarchs  and  no- 
bles would  have  felt  the  weight  of  his  censures. 
Having  been  born,  happily  for  us,  in  the  nine- 
teenth century,  he  found  an  appropriate  sphere 
in  politics,  but  the  spiritual  element  asserts  itself, 
penetrating  and  traversing  his  character  in  all  di- 
rections, like  seams  of  primitive  granite. 

"  This  central  fire  of  his  nature  affects  every- 
thing. It  gives  its  specific  type  to  his  imagina- 
tion, which  seems  to  consist  in  the  fusing  of  his 
ideas,  so  as  to  set  all  their  associations  free  and 
leave  them  to  course  along  with  but  little  guid- 
ance, except  that  which  they  derive  from  (heir 
imperious  affinities.  They  are  sometimes  his 
master ;  they  yield  with  reluctance  to  the  disci- 


254  WILLIAM  EWART   GLADSTONE. 

pline  of  ' discrete  thought.'  It  seems  as  if,  under 
his  ardent  gaze,  they  grew  and  glowed  till  they 
filled  and  inflamed  the  whole  sphere  of  intellec- 
tual vision.  The  passion  that  has  kindled  them 
is  for  the  time  supreme,  and  will  continue  so  till 
the  flame  is  self -consumed.  Ideas  of  this  high 
temperature  demand  a  diction  of  corresponding 
pitch,  and  they  find  it  in  a  style  which  is  at  once 
stately  and  solemn,  exuberant  and  rhythmical ; 
in  imperial  sentences  which  go  circling  round 
like  the  orreries  of  an  astronomical  lecture,  each 
vanishing  away  into  space,  to  be  followed  by  an- 
other and  another  in  endless  succession,  till  the 
wondering  spectator  is  more  than  half  convinced 
by  the  mere  spell  of  admiration.  .  .  .  But  his 
most  potent  mastery  over  us  is  derived  from  the 
strength  and  the  transparent  honesty  of  his  con- 
victions, and  from  the  purity  and  elevation  of  his 
character,  aided  by  the  recollections  which  the 
sight  of  him  awakens  of  a  public  career  so  blame- 
less, disinterested,  and  beneficent.  His  moral 
earnestness  is  the  secret  of  his  political  growth. 
He  has  believed  ardently  and  practiced  sincerely, 
and  so  has  found  his  way  to  better  things.  Hence 
it  has  come  to  pass  that  the  rising  hope  of  the 
stern  and  unbending  Tories  of  fifty  years  ago, 
after  a  course  of  steadily  augmenting  luster,  is  to- 
day the  bright  and  not  yet  setting  star  of  pro- 
gress and  reform." 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  U8RARY  FACXITY 


A    000  021  496    5 


1=  j^i 


